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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 














































































THE SAINTLY CALLING 



THE SAINTLY 
CALLING 


BY 

JAMES MUDGE, D. D. 

r f 

Author of 

“The Land of Faith," “The Life of Love," “Honey From 
Many Hives,” “Growth in Holiness,” “Best 
of Browning,” Etc. 


‘ ‘ Called to be saints ’ ’ 

—Rom. i, 7 

“The saints, in whom is all my delight ” 

—Psa. XVI, 3 


CINCINNATI: 

JENNINGS 

AND 

GRAHAM 

NEW YORK: 

EATON 

AND 

MAINS 


t 









I 


LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Receiver) 

FEB 4 1905 

Copyrifeia trury 

J a >\. ft, 'for 

CUSS XXc. NO) 

SO 6 

COPY 8. 


COPYRIGHT, I905, BY 
JENNINGS AND GRAHAM 






PREFACE. 


Experience teaches. It also stimulates. 
What God has done for others we feel that He 
is ready to do for us, provided that we comply 
with the conditions. And there is nothing bet¬ 
ter than the life of very holy men to show pre¬ 
cisely what are the conditions and the essential 
qualities of highest holiness. Great pains have 
been taken in the sketches that make up this 
book, to select from a very large mass of material 
just those instances and incidents that would be 
most instructive and helpful. The cream pf very 
many large volumes is here, the single pages or 
paragraphs that are worth all the rest put to¬ 
gether. The object aimed at has been not doc¬ 
trinal discussion, but religious inspiration; not 
theology, but life. And while it is by no means 
claimed that the saints here depicted are neces¬ 
sarily superior to some others that might be men¬ 
tioned, it is fully believed that they are as well 
5 


6 


Preface . 


fitted as any to guide us into the deep things of 
God. They have flourished, nearly all of them, 
in quite recent times (which is a manifest advan¬ 
tage), and in a great variety of conditions. He 
who studies them thoroughly will receive much 
light on the all-important question, how to reach 
the highest states of grace. The author, at least, 
owes much of his religious growth to the impetus 
imparted by the example of others embodied in 
the stores of devout biography, of which he has 
been a loving student. Some of the lives on 
which his soul has been fed are here presented 
in miniature, with the hope that the glimpse thus 
afforded of their great loveliness may attract to 
further acquaintance, as well as incite to similar 
zeal. There are many more which the limits of 
the present volume do not permit of inclusion 
in the plan. Perhaps at some future time a fur¬ 
ther draft may be made on these rich treasures, 
if the readers of this volume shall call for an¬ 
other. 

Jamaica Plain, Mass . J. M. 


CONTENTS 


Page 

The Saintly Calling,.9 

Jonathan Edwards,.27 

John Wesley, - - - - - - 37 

John Fletcher,.47 

Edward Payson,.59 

George Mueller,.71 

Adoniram Judson, - - - - 85 

Amos Lawrence, - - - - - 99 

Frederick W. Faber, - - - - - 113 

Thomas J. Jackson,.123 

Alfred Cookman, - - - - - - 135 

Charles G. Finney,.147 

John E. Vassar,.159 

Frances R. Havergal, - - - - 171 

Mary D. James,.- 183 

Charles G. Gordon, - * - - 197 

Henry Drummond,.209 

Dwight L. Moody,.221 

William E. Gladstone, - - - - 2 37 

Benjamin M. Adams, - - - - 247 


7 










THE SAINTLY CALLING. 


Give me this day 
A little work to occupy my mind; 

A little suffering to sanctify 

My spirit; and, dear Lord, if Thou canst find 

Some little good that I may do for Thee, 

I shall be glad, for that will comfort me. 
Mind, spirit, heart—I leave them all to Thee. 


10 


THE SAINTLY CALLING. 

The hero, the sage, the saint,—these three 
have awakened unmeasured admiration, called 
out unbounded eulogy, fired the hearts of 
men with intense desire. But the greatest of 
these is the saint. He is the largest, tallest, 
noblest person in the world, the highest conceiv¬ 
able type of manhood, adapted to the most t ex¬ 
alted society, closest to the Divine. Being is 
more than doing, much more than knowing, in¬ 
finitely more than having. To be rich is noth¬ 
ing, to be strong is something, to be wise is a 
good deal, to be holy is everything. It means 
oneness with God. 

But what is a saint? Very erroneous con¬ 
ceptions abound as to the constituents of this 
character. That all genuine believers have this 
calling, and should be so designated, is a fair 
inference from many passages in Paul’s Epistles. 
But it is probably idle to expect this technical 


ii 


12 


The Saintly Calling . 

• Scripture meaning of the Word to displace the 
more popular usage which has come down 
through ecclesiastical history. Whatever the¬ 
ologians and exegetical authorities may say, it is 
altogether likely that saint, in ordinary parlance, 
will continue to stand for a man or woman ex¬ 
ceptionally eminent in piety, or possessing an ex¬ 
traordinary amount of holiness. When we en¬ 
deavor, however, to formulate a little more accu¬ 
rately our ideas on the subject, and free them 
from the vagueness which so generally prevails, 
we find that there are difficulties. False notions, 
which do great harm, have on various accounts 
been much abroad. 

The ascetic variety of saint is greatly in evi¬ 
dence. He was the current type some centuries 
ago, and still is much looked up to, not only in 
India, but even in Christian lands. Unless one 
has a goodly bundle of oddities and eccentricities, 
there are not a few who utterly refuse to recog¬ 
nize any special saintliness in him. With them 
robust health and mental poise are almost sins, 
and common sense is at a large discount. Others 


i3 


The Sahitly Calling . 

make the somewhat more excusable mistake of 
confounding great usefulness with great holiness, 
thus failing to distinguish between gifts and 
graces. If one has large opportunities and large 
endowments, he is regarded as sure of a large 
reward, quite irrespective of the very important 
questions, Has he been entirely faithful to his 
trust? Ought he not to have done, with such 
advantages, much more than he has ? Still others 
are unable to put away the preconceived opinions 
by which are ruled out from highest excellence 
all who, because of education, surroundings, or 
the world-period in which they live, have accepted 
certain doctrines, or acquired certain habits, or 
engaged in certain vocations, strongly obnoxious 
to those who make up the judgment. Practices 
to them clearly deleterious or manifestly absurd, 
for which they would stand condemned, they can 
not reconcile with a sensitive conscience or a close 
walk with God on the part of others. And so 
what the Lord has cleansed they call common. 

How shall we correct these mistaken notions 
and reach something like solid ground on this 


14 


The Saintly Calling. 


subject of saintliness? By studying the great 
saints of the ages as shown in standard biog¬ 
raphies, and also by examining the best approved 
manuals of high Christian experience. It is a 
most interesting and instructive investigation. It 
shows us that while there is almost endless va¬ 
riety in minor matters and even in forms of ex¬ 
pression, there is substantial oneness as to cer¬ 
tain fundamental things not large in number, but 
exceedingly weighty in character. Among these 
must be mentioned a vivid sense of God, a com¬ 
plete and permanent realization of His actual per¬ 
sonal presence, His intimate nearness as one to 
be spoken to and walked with. The pure in heart, 
we know, see God, see Him the more clearly in 
proportion to their greater purity. The two 
things go together, and each may be tested by 
the other. The Divine presence realized in the 
largest degree is Heaven. It is another way of 
expressing what has been so much emphasized 
in these later years as the infilling with the Holy 
Spirit. The Spirit is precisely the present God, 
God operating most immediately and most di- 


The Saintly Calling . 


*5 


rectly on the human heart, God exhibiting Him¬ 
self in spiritual things. He in whom God abides 
and who abides in God will be intensely conscious 
of Deity. As the fish is in the water and the 
animal in the air, so God is the element in which 
he lives and moves and has his being. God is 
in all his thoughts; God is everything to him, 
perceived in every event of daily life, in the Word 
and in the works, in history, providence, and 
nature. 

A perfect devotion to the will of God has 
been especially noticeable in all the shining ones. 
They have had a passion for God’s will, have 
meditated on it day and night, have learned to 
welcome it in all its manifestations. This is the 
form their self-renunciation has taken. It has 
been easy to put self aside because something so 
infinitely superior to their own will has been of¬ 
fered them. They have got a view of the Divine 
will, which has satisfied them of its supreme love¬ 
liness, its absolute wisdom and desirability; and 
perceiving that self-abandonment was the neces¬ 
sary preliminary to the acquisition of this better 


16 The Saintly Calling . 

thing they have had but little difficulty in put¬ 
ting self entirely away. They have counted it 
not a sacrifice, but an investment; not a loss, but 
a glorious gain. They have discovered that by 
going down they go up, that he who gives 
all gets all, that in His service pain is pleasure. 
It is thus that consecration and crucifixion, hard 
words as usually looked at, have become soft, and 
holy living has had cast about it a halo of heav¬ 
enly beauty. 

Closely akin to this has been the habit, among 
the saints, of ignoring in great measure human 
instrumentalities, turning away the thought from 
secondary agencies, and fixing it upon the great 
First Cause. They have found it best to deal di¬ 
rectly with God in all the events that met them, 
saving themselves thus a world of trouble. It 
has seemed to them that since men were but God’s 
hands and things the products of His power, it 
is far better to go straight to headquarters and 
transact business with the responsible manager. 
They have noticed the universal language of 
Scripture showing this trend, and have adopted 


i7 


The Saintly Calling . 

its point of view. In this way they have been 
delivered from a thousand temptations, have 
broken the power of circumstances, have defied 
appearances, have had constant communion with 
the Father, have changed defeat into victory. 
They have been able to take all from Him and 
do all for Him, and while this is the case, what 
but unspeakable bliss can be the result? This 
makes God great and makes Him immanent, in¬ 
stalls Him as Sovereign and hails Him King. 

It is impossible and unnecessary to enumerate 
all the tokens of saintship. But the burning heart 
must not be omitted. In other words, there has 
always been a glow of love to Christ, close per¬ 
sonal friendship for the Savior who has been 
dearer than all earthly friends. The terms of en¬ 
dearment in which they have indulged have i5cme- 
times been almost, or quite, a scandal to colder 
souls. The cup of their gratitude has run over. 
Their affection has been at the boiling point. 
Words have failed them, nor have ordinary deeds 
appeared anywhere near sufficient to meet the 
case. They have longed for something quite out 


18 The Saintly Calling . 

of the common, some chance at a martyr’s part 
to show adequately what they felt. They under¬ 
stand perfectly how it was with Mary of Bethany 
when she had to break the flask of alabaster. 
They are not careful, in one sense, about com¬ 
mands, for they account the slightest wish of 
Jesus, however indicated, to be for them the 
strongest of laws. They would gladly die the 
worst of deaths to give Him the least of pleas¬ 
ures. 

Unselfishness, of course, comes prominently 
into this list of saintly qualities. This goes with¬ 
out saying. He who loves Jesus with all his heart 
will love his neighbor likewise. He who gets very 
near to Christ will get very near to the suffering, 
toiling masses, upon whom Christ looked with 
such compassion, and will be unable to forget 
their needs. Self can no longer be the center of 
such a one’s efforts, nor the shrine of his worship. 
To do good to others will seem to him of more 
consequence than ministering to his own enhanced 
comfort. He will find his deepest joy in enlarged 
spheres of usefulness. He will think more and 


The Saintly Calling . 


19 


more of the work to be done, less and less of added 
prominence and emoluments for the worker. 
While he may not in every case seem unselfish 
to careless onlookers, who are very poor judges— 
for, as Emerson well says, “those who live to the 
future must always appear selfish to those who 
live to the present”—while he may not be so situ¬ 
ated that he can either give large sums of money 
or large amounts of time in ministering to those 
around him, he will in numberless little ways show 
that he has “a heart at leisure from itself to soothe 
and sympathize.” 

Unworldliness must on no account be omitted. 
The saint proclaims himself in a hundred ways 
to be a pilgrim and a stranger here. He does 
not look at things as other people do. He really 
believes God. The current maxims of the marts 
of trade are abhorrent to him. The customs of 
that which calls itself the best society he has little 
relish for. He estimates affairs by a different 
standard from that which most men use. What 
others count small, to him is often large, and vice 
versa. What many regard as all-important, to 


20 The Saintly Calling . 

him is worthless. He has the divine standpoint, 
and “that which is highly esteemed among men 
is abomination ,, in his sight. The things of time 
and sense do not interest him greatly; they are 
not the essentials, but the accidentals; they are 
subordinate and preliminary, insignificant and 
superficial. He lives in and for the unseen, be¬ 
holding the invisible. 

Only one other trait, closely allied to the last, 
can here be mentioned. No one can be esteemed 
as eminent for piety who does not take that view 
of death and heaven which St. Paul and his 
Master so constantly emphasized. “To die is 
gain/’ said the apostle; “to depart and be with 
Christ is far better,” “Christ hath abolished 
death.” In nothing more signally than in this 
is the ordinary worldling or even the common 
Christian differentiated from the saint. The 
former are “all their lifetime in bondage through 
fear of death;” the latter is completely emanci¬ 
pated. Pie looks forward with thrilling, intensest 
expectation and exultation to that better country, 
to that city which hath foundations, which holds 


21 


The Saintly Calling, 

all on which his heart is most eagerly set. It is 
to him the center of all attractions. He finds it 
hard at times to wait till God gives him the signal 
to come. He catches gleams as through an open 
door or a gate ajar of what is going on there, 
and he longs to be gone. He thinks so much 
about it, has drunk so deeply into its spirit, that 
he has visions of its delights. His company is 
there. He would at any moment welcome the 
transition, counting the day of departure his true 
birth time, his passing out of prison into liberty, 
out of darkness into resplendent and eternal light. 

Here, then, are seven qualities—a vivid sense 
of God, a passionate devotion to His will, a habit 
of dealing directly with Him, a heart glowing and 
burning with love to Jesus, together with unself¬ 
ishness, unworldliness, and a high appreciation 
of heaven—which, we are certain, will not be ab¬ 
sent in him whose piety is uncompromising, con¬ 
summate, intense. The saint will also have, it 
hardly need be said, deep love for holy Scripture, 
great fondness for intercessory prayer, complete 
contentment with all God’s allotments, much 


22 


The Saintly Calling . 


keenness of moral discernment, and a constantly 
increasing delicacy of conscience. His desires 
will be carefully regulated, his conversation will 
have a spiritual flavor, he will be characterized 
by steadiness of faith, brightness of hope, fullness 
of love, quiet watchfulness, happy diligence, 
cheerfulness, gentleness, sweetness, trustfulness, 
fidelity, integrity, humility, symmetry. He will, 
in short, be like Christ and full of God. 

He who studies the nineteen brief sketches of 
modern saints which make up this little book, will 
find all these qualities beautifully and amply illus¬ 
trated. He will also be impressed with the fact 
that these qualities have found rich development 
and glorious manifestation in the midst of the 
largest possible variety of external circumstances 
and intellectual views. There is here a lesson of 
immense importance in favor of true catholicity, 
a loud warning against bigotry. Its careful con¬ 
templation would do much to quicken our sym¬ 
pathies, broaden our outlook, and increase our 
enjoyment of the manifold works of God. Truly 
there are many rooms in the one great mansion 


23 


The Saintly Calling . 

of the common Father of all. The Master had 
occasion to warn His disciples against withhold¬ 
ing fellowship from those who were casting out 
devils in His name, and yet, for some good rea¬ 
son, chose different affiliations. The Apostle Paul 
could unfeignedly rejoice that Christ was 
preached, even though the preachers were decid¬ 
edly not of his party. Although we can not think 
alike, we may love alike. Hearts may be joined, 
though heads disagree. A study of the saints 
clearly proves this; shows equal devotion, conse¬ 
cration, aspiration, in the midst of wide diversity 
concerning many matters around which fierce con¬ 
tention has raged. May we not rightly say that 
these things about which such good men can 
widely differ are of minor consequence, affording 
no basis for the arraignment of character or the 
diminution of love ? In heaven all these men will 
have very high seats. Shall we not antedate that 
day by giving them high places in our affections 
now, and according to them our heartiest admira¬ 
tion ? What other course is really Christian ? 

And shall we not also be mightily moved, as 


24 


The Saintly Calling. 


we contemplate these examples, to covet for our¬ 
selves similar attainments? Shall we not be 
shamed out of our supine contentment with small 
things ? Can we doubt that what God has shown 
Himself willing to do for others, He is equally 
willing to do for us, as soon as we comply with 
the conditions? If these in so many different 
communions and employments and walks of life 
have achieved this marvelous nearness to God, 
why should not we? Will it not pay a thousand¬ 
fold ? Is there anything else so well worth striv¬ 
ing for ? Why are we so languid in this vital mat¬ 
ter, so listless, so indifferent ? After all, is not the 
saint the normal Christian, the only consistent 
Christian, the only one who fills out God’s design, 
who lays hold of that for which he has been laid 
hold of ? Must not all others be set down as in a 
state of arrested development, as those who began 
well but did not press forward to full growth? 
Who of us is there that can rightly slip out of the 
obligation to be a saint in the large sense of that 
term ? It simply means to put away self in every 
form, to thrust the world completely under foot, 


The Saintly Calling . 


25 


to crucify the flesh, to conquer the devil, to be 
out and out for Jesus, to count everything loss, 
that we may most fully win Him and be con¬ 
formed to His resurrection. It is for us to say, 
We will, and thus to put ourselves side by side 
with these holy men. 

“ They climbed the dizzy steep to heaven, 
Through peril, toil, and pain; 

O God, to us may grace he given, 

To follow in their train.” 


Rabia, sick upon her bed, 

By two saints was visited, 

Holy Malik, Hassan wise, 

Men of mark in Moslem eyes. 
Hassan said, “ Whose prayer is pure 
Will God’s chastisements endure.” 
Malik from a deeper sense 
Uttered his experience: 

“ He who loves his Master’s choice 
Will in chastisements rejoice.” 
Rabia saw some selfish will 
In their maxims lingering still, 

And replied: “ O men of grace, 

He who sees his Master’s face 
Will not in his prayer recall 
That he is chastised at all.” 



It is easy enough to be pleasant 
When life flows along like a song; 

But the man worth while is the man who will smile 
When everything goes dead wrong. 

For the test of the heart is trouble, 

And it always comes with the years; 

And the smile that is worth the praise of earth 
Is the smile that shines through tears. 


By thine own soul’s law learn to live; 

And, if men thwart thee, take no heed; 
And if men hate thee, have no care; 

Sing thou thy song, and do thy deed; 
Hope thou thy hope and pray thy prayer; 
And claim no crown they will not give. 


Teach me, dear Lord, what Thou wouldst have me know, 
Guide me, dear Lord, where Thou wouldst have me go, 
Help me, dear Lord, Thy precious seed to sow, 

Bless Thou the seed, that it may surely grow. 


26 




JON A THAN ED WARDS. 


✓ 


Calm Soul of all things, make it mine, 
To feel amid the city’s jar 
That there abides a peace of Thine, 
Man did not make, and can not mar; 
The will to neither strive nor cry, 

The power to feel with others give; 
Calm, calm me more, nor let me die, 
Before I have begun to live. 

28 






JONATHAN EDWARDS. 


By general consent Jonathan Edwards, stands 
out as one of the world's first thinkers, a masterly 
originator in the realm of ideas, the foremost 
pure intellect perhaps of his time, the highest 
speculative genius of the eighteenth century, for 
subtlety of reasoning and metaphysical acumen 
unsurpassed, drawing upon himself the un¬ 
bounded admiration of European critics in a time 
when they were disposed to look to America least 
of all as a place for superlative mental excellence. 
Besides holding this high rank among the doctors 
of the Church, the philosophers of the century, 
and the theologians of America, he was also one 
of the most impressive of preachers, unsurpassed 
in effectiveness as a revivalist, and among the 
saintliest of men. He has been called “the saint 
of New England.” We delight to dwell upon this 
aspect of his character, for while his theological 
ideas are very considerably discredited now, even 


30 


The Saintly Calling . 


among his most legitimate and direct ecclesiastical 
descendants, and the former estimates of his 
greatness must in some directions be lowered, 
no deduction need be made from his reputation 
for eminent piety, nor is there anything of larger 
importance than this. 

He was born October 5, 1703, but the date of 
his conversion can not be exactly fixed, nor is 
even the time he joined the Church positively 
known. This is the more remarkable from the 
prominence which such a process received in his 
ministry and the earnestness with which he in¬ 
sisted on the need of a change of heart. He 
showed the keenest susceptibility to religious im¬ 
pressions from a very early period. Oliver Wen¬ 
dell Holmes characteristically says: “His ances¬ 
tors had fed on sermons so long that he must 
have been born with Scripture texts lying latent 
in his embryonic thinking marrow, like the unde¬ 
veloped picture in the film of collodion.” He had 
as a child the deepest reverence for spiritual 
things, and was accustomed to go off by himself 
for prayer to secret places in the woods. Ed- 


yonathan Edwards. 


3 1 


wards’s own conclusion was that these strong re¬ 
ligious impressions of early childhood (when he 
was six or seven years old) were not tokens of 
conversion. Some of his biographers think he 
was in error as to this, that these impressions were 
the result of the gracious operation of the Spirit 
of God on his heart, and that the declension in 
the state of his affections, when he went to col¬ 
lege at twelve, was only what might be expected 
under the circumstances, not to be counted se¬ 
verely against his Christian character. However 
this may be, about the time of his graduation from 
college, at sixteen, a new period of consecration 
came, which (as in the strikingly similar case of 
Wesley) may be perhaps termed his conversion. 
From about this date, he says, he began to have 
new ideas of Christ, an inward sweet sense of 
spiritual things came into his heart, he spent much 
time meditating on the beauty and excellence of 
the Savior, he began to be swallowed up in God. 
He often walked abroad for contemplation, the 
divine majesty and grace overwhelmed him, a 
heavenly glory appeared in almost everything— 


32 


The Saintly Calling . 


sun, moon, grass, stars, flowers, trees—and he 
delighted to sing forth in a low voice his con¬ 
templations of the Creator and Redeemer. He 
had vehement longings of soul for God and Christ, 
and for more holiness, wherewith his heart seemed 
to be full and ready to break. He lamented that 
he had not turned to God sooner, that he might 
have more time to grow in grace; he was almost 
constantly in ejaculatory prayer wherever he was. 

It was at this time, or a little later, that he 
wrote out a long series of resolutions for his per¬ 
sonal guidance, which have become justly cele¬ 
brated and might well be copied here in full were 
there space. He made the most solemn and ex¬ 
plicit dedication of himself to God, covenanting 
to do whatsoever he thought most for His glory 
without respect to the difficulties that might be 
met with, never to lose a moment of time, to be 
faithful to every trust, to maintain the strictest 
temperance in eating and drinking, never to do 
anything that he would condemn as wrong in 
others or that he would be likely to regret on a 
dying bed or in the other world, to strive every 


Jonathan Edwards. 


33 


week and day to be brought higher in religion, 
to inquire every night wherein he had been negli¬ 
gent, never to give over the fight for greater near¬ 
ness to God, and to be continually endeavoring 
to find out some new contrivance and invention to 
promote these things. Surely all this indicates 
a most worthy ambition, one that would have met 
with the heartiest approval from him who, not 
far from this same time, was leading “the Holy 
Club” at Oxford. We are amazed to find in one 
not yet twenty such elevation of spirit, such moral 
sublimity, such firmness of purpose, such clear 
grasping of the true ideal. And the best of it 
is that his subsequent life fully justified the high 
expectations which these early resolves are so well 
fitted to call forth. They were carried out, if not 
to the letter, at least to a very wonderful degree. 

An all-pervading consciousness of God was 
the spiritual groundwork of his nature. It may 
be safely said that the annals of Christian char¬ 
acter present few, if^ny, examples of more intel¬ 
ligent, fervent piety than that which guided and 
governed his life. There can be no manner of 


3 


34 


The Saintly Calling . 


doubt that he honestly yielded his whole heart 
and soul to the gracious influence of the divine 
Spirit without reservation or cessation. He 
humbly and habitually relied on strength divine 
in all his work. He abounded and delighted in 
prayer. He spared not himself at any point, hesi¬ 
tated at no sacrifice when principle was at stake, 
conformed to truth and duty in the face of utmost 
opposition. Childlike simplicity and sincerity, to¬ 
gether with a heavenly ardor of affection, char¬ 
acterized all his religious exercises. His heart 
was rich in feeling, and the vision of God usually 
very clear. His disposition was to turn every 
occurrence to a religious use, and thus to grow 
ever wiser and better under the course of disci¬ 
pline to which the providence of God subjected 
him. His intercourse with his Maker was of the 
most confidential sort, was the very life and sub¬ 
stance of his soul. He valued His approbation 
above all things else, and lived in His immediate 
presence. He was much on his knees in secret; 
his self-examination was constant. It will be 
thought, no doubt, by some that there was an ex- 


Jonathan Edwards. 


35 


cess in this subjective analysis, that his piety was 
too much tinged by asceticism and mysticism; 
the temper of the present day is restive under 
such close restraint, and desires greater freedom. 
And it need not be denied that self-inspection 
can be carried too far, the inward scrutiny may 
become morbid. We are not persuaded, however, 
that it was so in his case, for he had a masculine 
mind which gave no signs of sinking at any point 
into driveling doldrums, and he was habitually 
cheerful in his disposition; “sweet” and “bright” 
were favorite words with him. He showed, more¬ 
over, a unique liberality and charity to the poor 
and distressed, and his passion for souls was 
known and read of all men. Keen as was his 
joy in contending for the truth, or in commend¬ 
ing himself personally to his Heavenly Father, 
he had still keener joy in bringing men to Jesus. 
It may be said that he lived constantly in the pres¬ 
ence of the Infinite, that he was pre-eminently 
a “God-intoxicated man,” that a Divine light 
played ever upon his features, and a supernatural 
life glowed ever in his heart. 


36 


The Saintly Calling. 


Edwards had unclouded faith in God, com¬ 
plete submission to the will of Heaven, a flawless 
honesty, unfaltering courage, unruffled cheerful¬ 
ness of temper, and a sublime devotion to the 
highest ideals of duty. It is right to call him a 
saint. No sect or school of opinion can exclu¬ 
sively claim him. He is the pride and boast of 
the Church universal. Contemplation of him 
brings us near to the celestial regions. After the 
lapse of two hundred years his great example says 
to us, “Be more devoted, be wholly the Lord’s; 
it is possible and it is glorious.” He died March 
22, 1758. 


O Jesus Christ, grow Thou in me, 

And all things else recede; 

My heart be daily nearer Thee, 

From sin be daily freed. 

Make this poor self grow less and less, 
Be Thou my life and aim; 

O make me daily through Thy grace 
More meet to bear Thy name. 

Tet faith in Thee and in Thy might 
My every motive move; 

Be Thou alone my soul’s delight, 

My passion and my love. 









JOHN WESLEY. 




j 




I would not ask Thee that my work 
Should never bring me pain or fear, 
Test I should learn to work alone, 

And never wish Thy presence near; 
But I would ask a humble heart, 

A changeless will to work and wake, 
A firm faith in Thy providence, 

The rest—’t is Thine to give or take. 


38 



JOHN WESLEY. 


The; contemplation of John Wesley’s piety is 
well calculated to kindle a responsive flame in 
the most cold and sluggish nature. It glowed 
and scintillated with beams of light divine as 
few others have done. It speaks to-day in all 
lands and languages with a mighty voice. Yet 
there has been no little discussion as to the 

true date of its beginning. Just when was he 

converted? The question has never been au¬ 
thoritatively or indubitably answered. He him¬ 
self does not clearly tell us. There is evi¬ 
dence to show that in the judgment of his 

parents, and perhaps in his own, he was a genu¬ 
ine Christian from his earliest consciousness. 
During school and college life he grew somewhat 
cold and careless in his religious duties, falling 
into the worldly ways of those around him. But 
at the close of this period, when he took his de¬ 
gree and confronted the ministerial calling, a very 


40 The Saintly Calling, 

marked change took place in his heart and life, 
a change which some have termed conversion. It 
is certain that at this time he consecrated his will 
to God up to the full measure of his intelligence, 
and, so far as we can see, maintained it at this 
pitch for the rest of his days. He read at this 
period Kempis’s “Imitation of Christ,” Jeremy 
Taylor’s “Holy Living and Dying,” and William 
Law’s “Christian Perfection.” After the read¬ 
ing he said, “I determined to be all devoted to 
God, to give Him all my soul, my body, and my 
substance.” “I resolved to dedicate all my life 
to God, all my thoughts, words, and affections.” 
He surely did it. From that day he served God 
and his fellow-men as best he knew, with undi¬ 
vided aim and the most self-denying diligence. 
No one could be more sincere, more earnest, more 
devout. 

There was, however, something still lacking 
with him for the rounding out of the full meas¬ 
ure of his spiritual power. Light upon the path¬ 
way of holiness did not clearly dawn on his mind 
until thirteen years later. He was a most pains- 


4i 


John Wesley . 

taking - servant of God, toiling indefatigably, but 
as yet, through lack of proper instruction, he had 
not attained the joy and freedom of a child who 
has within him the witness of his adoption into 
the divine family. This momentous change took 
place May 24, 1738, when his heart was “strangely 
warmed” at the meeting in Aldersgate Street, 
London, where an assurance, as he says, was 
given him that his sins were all taken away. 
This has sometimes been called his conversion, 
sometimes his entire sanctification. But we do 
not think either term strictly applies. It was an 
epoch of great significance, a long step in his 
spiritual progress, a receiving of the witness of 
the Spirit to his adoption, a passage out of legal 
service into bright sonship. But it was not so 
much an advance in self-dedication as a clearing 
up of intellectual difficulties which brought him 
into liberty. There was still not a little ground 
for him to traverse in his onward way toward 
the heights. We find him writing a few months 
after this: “I have not yet the full assurance of 
faith.” He finds earthly desires arising within 


42 


The Saintly Calling. 


him, fears and doubts disturb his peace, he has 
not the complete mastery of his temper, and the 
joy unspeakable does not abide. 

We find no further marked crises with Wes¬ 
ley. There are not indeed quite so explicit and 
definite personal professions as we naturally look 
for on the part of one who urged these things 
so strenuously upon his preachers and followers. 
His subsequent walk appears to have been for the 
most part one of gradual, even growth, so much 
so that a few of his friends were rather stumbled 
by it. An intimate correspondent, Miss Bosan- 
quet, writes to him, in 1761, as follows: “Why 
should you be without the blessing any longer? 
It is His will that from the time you read this you 
should never sin against Him any more. Now be¬ 
lieve, and His blood shall so flow over your soul 
that no spot shall be found there.” In 1766 he 
writes to his brother ^o “press the instantaneous 
blessings; then I shall have more time for my 
peculiar calling, enforcing the gradual work.” 
The reason why he felt thus called was doubtless 
because God had led him personally in this way. 


John Wesley . 


43 


He writes under date of February 24, 1786, as 
follows: “I do not remember to have heard or 
read anything like my own experience. Almost 
ever since I can remember I have been led in a 
peculiar way. I go on in an even line, being very 
little raised at one time or depressed at another. ,, 
And two years after this, when he was eighty-five 
years old, Mrs. Fletcher records: “I could not but 
discern a great change in him. His soul seems 
far more sunk into God, and such an unction at¬ 
tends his words that each sermon was indeed 
spirit and life.” 

The chief thing about Wesley seems to us to 
be the completeness of his dedication of himself 
to God, his unselfish, unswerving, whole-hearted 
devotion to duty. This, doubtless, increased with 
his years, as he came to grasp its whole meaning 
more fully. But thoroughness and logical con¬ 
sistency were ingrained in his being from the 
start, and he rarely failed in prompt action when 
once convinced that a particular course was right. 
His piety did not expend itself in fine phrases, 


44 


The Saintly Calling . 


or Pharisaic professions, or belligerent dogmatics, 
or even rapturous hallelujahs—it straightway 
translated itself into deeds. To be like Christ, 
to think Christ’s thoughts, to speak Christ’s 
words, to carry out Christ’s plans, to do Christ’s 
will, became increasingly the grand ambition of 
his life. He was Christ-centered and God-intoxi¬ 
cated, filled with an all-consuming zeal to do good, 
an overmastering passion for the Divine glory. 
He had but one aim, one purpose, and he swept 
aside whatever stood in the way of carrying it 
out. Money, ease, leisure, safety, reputation, 
honor—he put his foot upon and cast behind his 
back. “Leisure and I,” he wrote, “have taken 
leave of one another. I purpose to be busy as 
long as I live.” “Up and be doing!” was his fre¬ 
quent cry. “There is another world.” “I believe 
in eternity, I must arise and go.” So he tarried 
not in any of the pleasant retreats that invited 
him, and pressed ever on. “Live to-day,” was 
one of his favorite salutations to his friends in 
the morning. And if ever man heeded his own 
injunction it was he. Every day was spent as 


John Wesley . 


45 


though he knew it would be his last. “The mo¬ 
ments fly,” he says, “and must be accounted for.” 

He was thoroughly unselfish, wholly un¬ 
worldly, and with a serene trust in Providence 
that nothing had power to disturb. This made 
him cheerful under all circumstances, thankful 
for everything, and delivered from trouble. “I 
dare no more fret,” said he, “than curse and 
swear.” “By the grace of God I never fret, I 
repine at nothing, I am discontented with noth¬ 
ing. I see God sitting upon His throne and rul¬ 
ing all things well. Ten thousand cares of vari¬ 
ous kinds are no more weight or burden to my 
mind than ten thousand hairs are to my head.” 
“We know that all things are ordered by unerr¬ 
ing wisdom, and are given us exactly at the right 
time, and in due number, weight, and measure.” 
“If we see God in all things and do all for Him, 
then all things are easy.” He was never low- 
spirited, never idle. He comes as near to being 
a model in point of industry as mortal can well 
be. His religion included politeness and tact. 
He was considerate for others’ feelings, a true 


46 


The Saintly Calling . 


gentleman. He had magnificent courage, and per¬ 
fect coolness in times of danger. His independ¬ 
ence as a thinker and his glorious catholicity of 
spirit were equally marked. “Think and let 
think,” was one of his mottoes; also this: “Al¬ 
ways in haste, but never in a hurry.” He never 
undertook more work than he could get through 
with perfect calmness of spirit, but up to the 
limit of his strength he labored, all for Christ 
and naught for self. In short, we behold in him 
that very rare thing, an entirely consistent Chris¬ 
tian. We can not do as much as he did. But is 
there any real reason why we can not do as well, 
show the same spirit, pursue the same purpose, 
and reap the same “Well done” at last? 


We should fill the hour with the sweetest things 
If we had but a day; 

We should drink alone at the purest springs 
In our upward way. 

We should be from our clamorous selves set free, 
To work or to pray, 

And to be what the Father would have us be, 

If we had but a day. 



JOHN FLETCHER 




If thou canst plan a noble deed, 

And never flag till thou succeed, 

Though in the strife thy heart should bleed, 
Whatever obstacles control, 

Thine hour will come, go on, true soul, 

Thou It win the prize, thou It reach the goal. 


48 



JOHN FLETCHER. 


John Fletcher was born in Switzerland, 
1729, of a distinguished family, and thoroughly 
educated at Geneva. Having found his way to 
England he took orders, when about thirty, in 
the Church, but identified himself closely and 
heartily with the Methodist movement. He be¬ 
came vicar of Madeley, and hence did not travel 
so extensively as some others; but he was Wes¬ 
ley’s most ardent coadjutor in the Establishment, 
a constant attendant at the Conference, his coun¬ 
selor, the champion of his theological views, his 
designated successor, and, above all, a most saintly 
example of the life and power of Christianity, 
known and read of all men. 

Robert Southey said: “No age or country has 
ever produced a man of more fervent piety or 
perfect charity; no Church has ever possessed a 
more apostolic minister.” Abel Stevens said: 
“We look in vain through the records of Roman 
49 


4 



50 


The Saintly Calling. 


or Protestant piety for a more perfect example 
of the consecration of the whole life, inward and 
outward.” The Rev. Henry Venn remarked: 
“He was a sun. I have known all the great men 
for fifty years, but I have known none like him.” 
Robert Hall’s words were: “Fletcher is a seraph 
who burns with the ardor of Divine love. Spurn¬ 
ing the fetters of mortality, he almost habitually 
seems to have anticipated the rapture of the be¬ 
atific vision.” Isaac Taylor said: “Fletcher was 
as unearthly a being as could tread the earth at 
all.” The testimony of Dr. Dixon was: “I con¬ 
ceive Fletcher to be the most holy man who has 
been on earth since the apostolic age.” Said 
Joseph Benson: “I never saw him in any temper 
in which I could not wish to have been found at 
death.” Mr. Wesley’s testimony is even more 
explicit and important: “I was intimately ac¬ 
quainted with him for above thirty years. I con¬ 
versed with him morning, noon, and night, with¬ 
out the least reserve, during a journey of many 
hundred miles; and in all that I never heard him 
speak one improper word, or saw him do an im- 


John Fletcher. 


5i 


proper action. Many exemplary men have I 
known, holy in heart and life, within fourscore 
years, but one equal to him I have not known— 
one so inwardly and outwardly devoted to God. 
So unblamable a character in every respect I have 
not found either in Europe or America; nor do I 
expect to find another such on this side of eter¬ 
nity.” 

How did he attain this height of grace and 
glory? He had a most tender conscience and 
profound piety when very young; many anec¬ 
dotes are given regarding it. He lived in the 
most exemplary way, being ambitious for moral 
perfection; but he does not seem to have grasped 
the secret of saving faith till he was twenty-six, 
when he had a clear conversion. From this time 
he grew very steadily in likeness to the Master, 
his vehement soul being ever on the stretch for 
God. Naturally formed for pre-eminence, no 
common attainments could satisfy his desires. He 
denied himself at every point that he might get 
more of the mind of Jesus and deeper baptisms 
of the Spirit. Indeed he carried his austerities 


5 2 


The Saintly Calling . 


and abstemiousness so far as to injure his health, 
which was certainly an error of judgment, as he 
came afterwards to see. He gave himself up to 
study, meditation, prayer, and close walking with 
God. So intensely was his mind fixed on Divine 
things that he sometimes said: “I would not move 
from my seat without lifting up my heart to God.” 

There is still in existence a little manuscript 
book, a manual of private devotion written out 
by his own hand, with whose rules, resolutions, 
precepts, and mottoes he nourished his soul in 
secret. It was thus he sought to perfect himself 
in the love of God and in the minutest details 
of character and conduct. It was in this pains¬ 
taking way that his inmost life was carefully cul¬ 
tivated and his saintliness evolved. No process 
was left untried, no means neglected. He was 
especially thorough in constant self-examination, 
testing himself ever by the highest standards. 
Some of his questions, evening by evening, were: 
“In how many instances have I denied myself this 
day?” “Have I laid out anything to please my¬ 
self when I might have saved the money for the 


John Fletcher . 


53 


cause of God?” “Have I governed well my 
tongue this day?” “Have I this day walked by 
faith and eyed God in all things?” “Has my 
faith been weakened by neglect or quickened by 
diligence?” Some of his rules were: “Receive 
afflictions as the best guides to perfection.” “Re¬ 
member always the presence of God.” “Rejoice 
always in the will of God.” “Always speak 
gently.” “Do not surrender thyself to any joy.” 
“Beware of relaxing and of impatience.” “Re¬ 
nounce thyself in all that can hinder thy union 
with God.” 

As in the case of all saints, the will of God 
was the one thing he accounted most precious, 
and for greater conformity with which he ever 
strove. He said: “When we love God we have 
always our heart’s desire, for we love His will, 
His desires become ours, and ours are always 
perfectly resigned to His. Now as God does 
whatsoever He pleases both in heaven and in 
earth, His lovers always have their heart’s de¬ 
sire, forasmuch as they always have His will, 
which is theirs. Submitting our private will to 


54 


The Saintly Calling . 


His is only preferring the greater good to the 
less. For my part, as I expect nothing from 
men they can not disappoint me; and as I ex¬ 
pect all good things from God, in the time, way, 
measure, and manner it pleases Him to bestow, 
here I can not be disappointed, because He does 
and will do all things well. ,, He found a thou¬ 
sand temptations to be baffled by absolute, joy¬ 
ful acceptance of the Divine will; and he was 
carried in triumph through a thousand trials by 
his complete confidence in the Savior. 

His exertions for his people at Madeley, whom 
he dearly loved, unresponsive though in the main 
they proved to be, wore him out. With incessant 
preaching he combined the most diligent pastoral 
labors. He went continually from house to house, 
sympathizing wi.th the afflicted, helping the poor, 
ministering to the sick, and admonishing the vi¬ 
cious. His liberality to the needy is said to have 
been scarcely credible. He led a life of severe 
abstinence that he might feed the hungry; he 
went in cheap attire that he might clothe the 
naked; he sometimes unfurnished his house that 


John Fletcher. 


55 


he might' supply suffering families with necessary 
articles. When separated from his dear congre¬ 
gation, in search of health, he wrote to them: 
“Have every day lower thoughts of yourselves, 
higher thoughts of Christ, kinder thoughts of 
your brethren, and more hopeful thoughts of all 
around you.” 

He was a great sufferer from sickness. The 
prolonged Calvinistic controversy, in which he 
won such high honors both intellectually and 
morally, greatly injured his health, but his bear¬ 
ing under it was most beautiful. He had fully 
learned how to rejoice evermore and in every¬ 
thing give thanks, beholding God’s hand in all 
events without the least exception. “All is well,” 
he says, “for He that doeth all things well rules 
and overrules all.” “This world has become to 
me a world of love.” “I kiss the rod which smites 
me. I adore the Providence which lays me aside.” 
To the king, who was pleased with some political 
pamphlet he wrote at the time of the American 
Revolution, and who sent to ask him whether any 
preferment in the Church would be acceptable, or 


56 


The Saintly Calling. 


whether he could do him any service, he replied, 
“I want nothing but more grace.” 

If ever any one lived a life of faith it was 
John Fletcher. He unweariedly labored to bring 
every thought into captivity to the obedience of 
Christ, and struggled against the most innocent 
of his infirmities if he imagined they could in any 
way displease his Maker or hinder his usefulness. 
He appeared to enjoy uninterrupted fellowship 
with the Father and the Son. Every hour was 
one of praise or prayer. He suffered no event 
to pass by unimproved. Every object led him 
into the presence of God, and every occurrence 
gave rise to a train of serious reflections. The 
fervor of his spirit was a silent but sharp reproof 
to the negligent and unfaithful; and so perfectly 
averse was he to every species of trifling, that no 
man of a light or indolent spirit could possibly 
associate with him for any length of time. What 
deadness to the world was his! What spiritual 
mindedness! What zeal for souls! What inter¬ 
course with heaven! What humility at the feet 
of Jesus! 


John Fletcher. 


57 


His wife, scarcely less sainted than himself, 
whom he married in November, 1781, less than 
four years before his death, bears ample testi¬ 
mony to the perfection of his character. “It was 
his constant endeavor to set the Lord before him 
and to maintain an uninterrupted sense of His 
presence. In order to do this he was slow of 
speech, and had the greatest government of his 
words. Indeed, he both acted and spoke and 
thought as under the eye of God. And thus he 
remained unmoved in all occurrences, possessing 
inward recollection at all times. Nor did I ever 
see him diverted therefrom on any occasion what¬ 
ever. Above a thousand miles I have traveled 
with him, during which neither change of com¬ 
pany nor of place ever seemed to make the least 
difference in his firm attention to the presence of 
God. To preserve this uniform habit of soul, he 
was so watchful and recollected, that to such as 
were inexperienced in these things it might ap¬ 
pear like insensibility. But no one could converse 
in a more lively or sensible manner, even on nat¬ 
ural things, when he saw it was to the glory of 


58 The Saintly Calling. 

God. Whatever he believed to be the will of 
God he resolutely performed, though it were to 
pluck out a right eye. For the good of his neigh¬ 
bor nothing seemed hard or wearisome.” 

His deathbed was a scene of great triumph. 
He exclaimed repeatedly: “God is love. It fills 
my heart every moment. Shout, shout aloud! 
I want a gust of praise to go to the ends of the 
earth!” He entered into rest on the evening of 
Sunday, August 14, 1785, and to-day in the ends 
of the earth and throughout the world praise 
goes up to the God of love for the life of John 
Fletcher. May it stimulate each of us to a like 
completeness of self-dedication to the Most High! 
For Fletcher’s God is also ours. 


We kneel how weak, we rise how full of power! 
Why, therefore, should we do ourselves this wrong, 
Or others, that we are not always strong; 

That we are ever overborne with care; 

That we should ever weak or heartless be, 
Anxious or troubled, when with us is prayer, 

And joy and strength and courage are with Thee ? 




EDWARD PAYS ON. 


O’t is enough whate’er befall, 

To know that God is all in all. 

’T is this which makes my treasure, 
’T is this which brings my gain; 
Converting woe to pleasure, 

And reaping joy from pain. 


60 


EDWARD PAYSON. 


However select the list of Protestant saints 
may be made, probably no one would deny a place 
in it to Edward Payson. Not that he is in all 
respects a model for imitation. He had some 
faults, and made a few rather serious mistakes. 
One at least entailed sad consequences. When 
a very young man, moved by deepest longings 
for the utmost purity and power in the ministry, 
he subjected himself to a discipline much too se¬ 
vere for his physical frame. His seasons of fast¬ 
ing were so frequent and prolonged, and the time 
allotted to sleep so short—six hours and some¬ 
times four—that he permanently injured his 
health. He was further disabled by a fall from 
his horse, and he had in addition a constitutional 
predisposition to melancholy. All these things 
combined to make some of his religious exercises 
abnormal; they subjected him to great depression 
of spirits and terrible temptations, crippling at 
61 



62 


The Saintly Calling. 


certain points his usefulness; his nervous system 
being shattered, he was driven at times almost to 
desperation, and wrote bitter things against him¬ 
self, for which there would have been no possible 
foundation or excuse had he been well. He un¬ 
doubtedly cut short his days by constantly labor¬ 
ing beyond his strength, as he could hardly help 
doing under the circumstances. In later years, 
too late, he saw his mistake, and writes: “I now 
feel that I am never serving our Master more ac¬ 
ceptably than when, for His sake, I am using 
means to preserve my health and prolong my 
life.” 

Payson was born July 25, 1783, at Rindge, 
N. H. (his father being a distinguished clergy¬ 
man of that region), and died at Portland, 
Maine, October 22, 1827. He showed no little 
interest in religion during his very earliest years, 
but it is not clear that he can be called a subject 
of converting grace at this time. At least the 
customs of the place and period did not encourage 
the growth of natural childhood piety. Hence 
it was not until 1804, the year after his gradu- 


Edward Payson . 


6 3 


ation from Harvard College, that he began to pay 
marked attention to religion. The death of a be¬ 
loved brother called his thoughts strongly to the 
interests of eternity, and from this time (as in 
the similar case of Edwards and Wesley) they 
laid very deep hold upon him. September 1, 
1805, was the time when he made a public pro¬ 
fession of religion, connecting himself with the 
Church at Rindge. A little before this, on his 
twenty-second birthday, he began a diary, dedi¬ 
cating himself to the ministry in the most solemn 
manner by a written covenant: “Relying on the 
assistance of His Holy Spirit, I engage to take 
the Holy Scriptures as the rule of my conduct, 
the Lord Jesus Christ to be my Savior, and the 
Spirit of all grace and consolation as my Guide 
and Sanctifier.” In the following year we find 
him adopting three plain rules for the decision 
of difficult cases: “To do nothing of which I 
doubt in any degree the lawfulness; to consider 
everything as unlawful which indisposes me for 
prayer and interrupts communion with God; never 
to go into any company, business, or situation in 



6 4 


The Saintly Calling. 


which I can not conscientiously ask and expect 
the Divine presence.” 

We find him deliberately drawing up another 
formal covenant as he was about entering on the 
work of the ministry in May, 1807. Personal 
religion was unquestionably his primary concern. 
It was not an intermittent affair with him. His 
ardor suffered scarce any visible abatement. His 
soul was constantly filled with unutterable long¬ 
ings and insatiable thirstings after God. He 
would not willingly suffer an hour to pass away 
without some effort for the recovery of lost sin¬ 
ners. He loved to preach, never grew weary of 
this employment, and counted absolutely on the 
Spirit’s aid in every endeavor. His converse with 
God was almost incessant, never relaxed, espe¬ 
cially in connection with his public labors. His 
seasons of private devotion also were long-con¬ 
tinued and intense. He prayed without ceasing. 
Much of his studying in theology and Scripture 
was on his knees. He ever strove to give God 
that place in his views and feelings which He act¬ 
ually fills in the universe, where He is all in all. 


Edward Payson. 


65 


His frequent cry was, “My soul, wait thou only 
upon God.” He writes to a brother minister: 
“Prayer is the first thing, the second thing, and 
the third thing necessary for a minister, especially 
in seasons of revival.” And his public prayers 
were so rich, fervent, and appropriate as wonder¬ 
fully to profit all who were privileged to join 
with him in them. 

He had a strong will, and never did anything 
by halves. His decision, earnestness, and energy 
of character, his unshaken adherence to his pur¬ 
poses, his triumph over many difficulties that 
would have defeated more ordinary souls, pro¬ 
claim him a truly great man. Great crowds 
thronged his ministry at Portland, where most 
of his life was spent, and almost constant revivals 
attended his labors. The popularity which came 
afforded him no pleasure, but alarm, and he was 
constantly guarding himself against the insidious 
assaults of pride, striving ever after a better self- 
knowledge. His longing for souls was continu¬ 
ous, and his devotion to Jesus absorbing. He 
says: “Friends are nothing, fame is nothing, 
5 


66 


The Saintly Calling . 


health is nothing, life is nothing; Jesus, Jesus is 
all. What would I not give for the power to 
make sinners love Him! It would be heaven 
enough to hear Him praised and adored, though 
no one should know or care about insignificant 
me.” “I have no heart to speak or write about 
anything but Jesus; and yet I have little patience 
to write about Him in our miserably defective 
language.” His longings for heaven were some¬ 
times overwhelming, as a door seemed opened 
into the celestial regions and a glimpse afforded 
of what was transacting there. “This fills us so 
full of impatience that we can scarecly wait till 
death comes to carry us home.” 

He made constant efforts after greater humil¬ 
ity. In 1818, counseling a candidate for the min¬ 
istry, he says: “My dear brother, if you can give 
up all desire to be great, and feel heartily willing 
to be nothing, you will be happy. You must not 
even wish to be a great Christian—that is, you 
must not wish to make great attainments in re¬ 
ligion for the sake of knowing that you have 
made, or for the sake of having others think that 


Edward Payson. 


67 


you have made, them. Most of my sins and suf¬ 
ferings have been occasioned by an unwillingness 
to be the nothing which I am, and by consequent 
struggles to be something.” A few years later 
he writes: “O what a blessed thing it is to lose 
one’s will! Since I have lost my will I have found 
happiness. There can be no such thing as disap¬ 
pointment to me, for I have no desires but that 
God’s will may be accomplished.” “God has been 
cutting off one source of enjoyment after another, 
till I find that I can do without them all, and yet 
enjoy more happiness than ever in my life before.” 
“Christians might avoid much trouble and incon¬ 
venience if they would only believe what they pro¬ 
fess, that God is able to make them happy without 
anything else. They imagine that if such a dear 
friend were to die or such and such blessings were 
removed they should be miserable; whereas God 
can make them a thousand times happier without 
them. To mention my own case: God has been 
depriving me of one blessing after another; but 
as every one was removed He has come in and 
filled up its place; and now when I am a cripple 


68 


The Saintly Calling. 


and not able to move I am happier than ever I was 
in my life before, or ever expected to be; and if 
I had believed this twenty years ago I might have 
been spared much anxiety.” “We shall never 
be happy until we acquiesce with perfect cheerful¬ 
ness in all His decisions, and follow wherever He 
leads without a murmur.” 

His sufferings were peculiarly excruciating in 
his later days, as they had been at certain seasons 
before, but his triumph over them was complete. 
While his body was tortured his soul was per¬ 
fectly happy and peaceful beyond expression, filled 
with joy unspeakable as God poured down a flood 
of glory in which he seemed to swim. We quote 
a few of his words; they are certainly inspiring: 
“I have not suffered one pang too much. God 
was never more kind than when I thought Him 
most unkind; never more faithful than when I 
was ready to say, ‘His faithfulness has failed/ 
. . . No man is fit to rise up and labor until 

he is made willing to lie still and suffer as long 
as his Master pleases. . . . God is ordering 

everything in infinite wisdom and mercy. . . . 


Edward Payson . 


69 


Though more pain was crowded into last week 
than any other week of my life, yet it was one of 
the happiest weeks I have ever spent. And now 
I am ready to say, ‘Come what will come, only let 
God come with them and they shall be welcome.’ 
Praised, blessed forever be His name for all my 
trials and afflictions. There has not been one too 
many—all were necessary and good and kind.” 
Being asked one day by a friend if he could see 
any particular reason for this severe dispensation, 
he replied: “No; but I am as well satisfied as 
if I could see ten thousand. God’s will is the 
very perfection of all reason.” On another oc¬ 
casion, near the close, he said: “I have suffered 
twenty times—yes, to speak within bounds— 
twenty times as much as I could in being burned 
at the stake, while my joy in God has so abounded 
as to render my sufferings not only tolerable, but 
welcome. . . . God is literally now my all 

in all. While He is present with me no event can 
diminish my happiness; and were the whole world 
at my feet trying to minister to my comfort they 
could not add one drop to the cup.” 


7o 


The Saintly Calling . 


Payson had unusual helps in his ancestry, in 
his ministerial calling, in his remarkable mental 
abilities and strength of will, also, one might say, 
in his sufferings; for these, when rightly em¬ 
ployed, are among the most powerful means of 
grace. His great success in the ministry and the 
almost idolatry with which he was regarded by 
his people was a snare against which he had to be 
continually on guard. We can not, of course, 
follow him in all things, being differently consti¬ 
tuted and circumstanced; but why should we not 
have a similar singleness of aim, and find in the 
same acceptance of God’s will the perfect happi¬ 
ness which God is ever ready to bestow on all 
who will perfectly trust Him? 


Desire not; self-love is strong 
Within thy breast; 

And yet He loves thee better still; 

So let Him do His loving will, 

And Trust and Rest. 

What dost thou fear ? His wisdom reigns 
Supreme confessed; 

His power is infinite; His love 
Thy deepest, fondest dreams above; 

So Trust and Rest. 



GEORGE MUELLER. 



O Lord, how happy should we be 
If we could cast our care on Thee 
If we from self could rest, 

And feel at heart that One above 
In perfect wisdom, perfect love, 

Is working for the best! 


72 





GEORGE MUELLER. 


In marked contrast with nearly all others who 
have reached high eminence in religious things, 
Mueller’s youth was sinful in the extreme. Until 
he was twenty he wasted his years in profligacy 
and wickedness of many kinds, being a liar, a 
thief, a swindler, a drunkard, a companion of 
convicted felons, himself in a felon’s cell, a hard¬ 
ened transgressor. He had no proper parental 
training; but he had a good education, being a 
university student at Halle, in preparation for 
the ministry, though utterly godless and fearfully 
ignorant of divine things. 

The turning-point in his career came one Sat¬ 
urday evening in November, 1825. Up to that 
time he had never heard one gospel sermon, nor 
did he have a copy of the Bible in his possession. 
He went with a friend to an evening meeting in 
a private house, and for the first time saw some¬ 
body on his knees praying. Most mysteriously 
73 




74 


The Saintly Calling . 


this was for him the parting of the ways. He 
began to search the Scriptures, and a new peace 
came into his heart. And in this uneventful way 
there began a career of which prayer for direct 
guidance, in every crisis great or small, was to be 
the main characteristic—believing prayer and 
faithful Scripture searching. 

As to the Bible, although up to this time he 
had never read one chapter of it, he soon learned 
the lesson of its primary importance. In a few 
years he acquired a genuine relish for the Word, 
and gave himself increasingly as long as he lived 
to its study. During the last twenty years of his 
life he read it carefully through four or five times 
annually, with a growing sense of his own rapid 
advancement in the knowledge of God thereby. 
He read the Bible from end to end in all nearly 
two hundred times. In his ninety-second year he 
said to a friend that for every page of any other 
reading he was sure he had read ten of the Bible. 
Three times in the Word of God we find a divine 
prescription for true prosperity, and each time it 
is substantially the same. We are told that we 


George Mueller . 


75 


must “meditate on” God’s “law day and night;” 
that we must “look,” and continue looking, “into 
this perfect law of liberty.” “That man shall be 
blessed in his deed;” “whatsoever he doeth shall 
prosper.” (Psa. i, 3; Josh, i, 8; Jas. i, 25.) No 
secret lies nearer to the root of Mueller’s success 
than this, devout meditation and continual reflec¬ 
tion upon the Scriptures. He did not make the 
fatal mistake so common with most Christians— 
he did not forget that the highest preparation for 
our work is the preparation of our souls; and that 
for this we must take time to be alone with His 
Word and His Spirit, that we may truly meet 
Him and understand His will. He fed on the 
Word, and was strong. 

Closely connected with this was his power in 
prayer. He heard God say to him as to Elijah, 
first, “Go, hide thyself ;” then, “Go, show thy¬ 
self.” He was never too busy to pray. He used 
to say to brethren who had “too much to do” to 
spend proper time with God, that four hours of 
work for which one hour of prayer prepares is 
better than five hours of work with the praying 


76 


The Saintly Calling . 


left out; that our service to our Master is more 
acceptable and our mission to men more profit¬ 
able, when saturated with the moisture of God’s 
blessing, the dew of the Spirit. His life can in 
no way be understood except on the basis of his 
daily and frequent communion with God. He 
was unwearied in supplications and intercessions; 
and in every crisis the prayer of faith was his one 
resort. He first satisfied himself that he was in 
the way of duty; then he fixed his mind upon the 
unchanging word of promise; then in the bold¬ 
ness of a supplicant who comes to a throne of 
grace in the name of Jesus Christ and pleads the 
assurance of the immutable Promiser, he pre¬ 
sented every petition. No delay discouraged him. 
On his prayer list were the names of some for 
whom he had besought God by name daily from 
one to ten years. There were two parties in par¬ 
ticular for whom he had prayed day by day for 
over sixty years without their having turned unto 
God; but he said: “1 have not a doubt that I shall 
meet them both in heaven: for my Heavenly 
Father would not lay upon my heart a burden of 


George Mueller . 


77 


prayer for them for over sixty years if He had 
not concerning them purposes of mercy.” In fifty 
thousand cases Mr. Mueller calculated that he 
could trace distinct answers to definite prayers; 
and in multitudes of instances in which God’s 
care was not definitely traced, it was day by day 
like an encompassing but invisible presence or 
atmosphere of life and strength. He carefully 
distinguished between the gift of faith and the 
grace of faith, the former involving an uncon¬ 
ditional asking for certain things not covered by 
any specific promise. This kind of faith he was 
permitted to exercise in very many cases for the 
restoration of bodily health to the sick, but he was 
not always successful. Once he prevailed in this 
way in his own case, but it was not customary 
with him. He was sick a good deal, struggled 
almost habitually with bodily infirmities, and was 
several times laid aside for quite a period by ill¬ 
ness ; his journal makes frequent references to his 
physical disabilities, and he several times sub¬ 
mitted to a costly operation at the hands of a skill¬ 
ful surgeon. 


78 


The Saintly Calling . 


To one who asked him the secret of his service 
he said: “There was a day when I died, utterly 
died”—and as he spoke he bent lower and lower, 
until he almost touched the floor—“died to George 
Mueller, his opinions, preferences, tastes, and 
will; died to the world, its approval or censure; 
died to the approval or blame even of my brethren 
and friends; and since then I have studied only 
to show myself approved unto God.” Just when 
this most significant death took place we find no 
account, but it is certain that from very nearly 
the beginning of his religious life he was unre¬ 
servedly given up to God according to the meas¬ 
ure of his light, and as the light, in response to 
his eager searching, constantly increased, he went 
very steadily forward. His loyalty to duty 
seemed to be ever complete. It was enough for 
him to know that a certain course, however dis¬ 
tasteful to the flesh, was pointed out by the Spirit, 
and there was no hesitation in following it. His 
eye was single, his purpose simple. He laid up 
nothing for old age; he spent nothing on himself 
except what the barest necessities demanded. He 


George Mueller . 


79 


exercised the utmost frugality and economy for 
Christ’s sake, keeping himself poor that he might 
make many rich. In this way, out of money given 
him strictly for his own private use he distributed 
$407,450; this in addition to the $7,500,000 which 
came to him solely in answer to prayer for the 
various institutions which God carried on through 
him. He had practically nothing in hand when 
he died. 

When his wife, whom he most tenderly loved, 
passed away, he showed the same implicit faith in 
the Father’s unfailing wisdom and love that had 
sustained him under other trying circumstances. 
Within a few hours after her departure he went 
to the prayer-meeting to mingle his prayers and 
praises as usual with those of his brethren. He 
asked them to join with him in hearty thanks¬ 
giving to the precious Lord for his lovingkind¬ 
ness in having taken his beloved wife out of her 
pain and suffering into His own presence. He 
said: “As I rejoice in everything that is for her 
happiness, so I now rejoice as I realize how far 
happier she is in beholding her Lord whom she 


8 o 


The Saintly Calling . 


loved so well than in any joy she has known, or 
could know, here.” He conducted the funeral 
service both at the chapel and at the cemetery, 
preaching the sermon from the text, “Thou art 
good, and doest good.” It was the super¬ 
natural serenity of his peace in the presence of 
such a bereavement that led his attending 
physician to say to a friend: “I have never 
before seen so unhuman a man.” When 
his second wife died, it was the same. He made 
the funeral address at the age of ninety, and the 
scene was most unique. He lived in such habitual 
communion with the unseen world, and walked in 
such uninterrupted fellowship with the unseen 
God, that the exchange of worlds became too real 
for him to mourn for those who had made it, or 
to murmur at all at the hand of Infinite Love. 

What a life it was, both on its inner and its 
outer side! The Scriptural Knowledge Institution, 
which he founded in 1834, down to his death had 
trained over sixteen thousand orphans, circulated 
over three million books and tracts, and nearly 
two million Bibles and parts thereof, aided schools 



George Mueller . 


81 

where nearly one hundred and fifty thousand chil¬ 
dren had been taught, and supported in part or in 
whole one hundred and fifteen missionaries in 
various lands. He himself traveled two hundred 
thousand miles, visiting forty-two countries in all 
the continents for the purpose of preaching the 
gospel, and did it within seventeen years, begin¬ 
ning when he had reached threescore and ten. It 
is thought that he addressed over three million 
people on these trips, speaking nearly six thou¬ 
sand times. 

He summed up his long history of blessing in 
these two statements: First, that the Lord was 
pleased to give him far beyond all he at first ex¬ 
pected to accomplish or receive; secondly, that 
he was fully persuaded that all he had seen and 
known would not equal the thousandth part of 
what he should see and know when the Lord 
should come. He felt that the faith of God’s 
children greatly needs strengthening, and that it 
was his special business in life to glorify God as 
one who helps those who trust in Him, to exem¬ 
plify how much may be accomplished by prayer, 
6 


82 


The Saintly Calling . 


and to show that there is a present prayer-hearing 
God, whom it is perfectly safe to trust, and with 
whom we may daily walk. He cultivated faith. 
He used to say to his helpers: “Never let enter 
your minds a shadow of doubt as to the love of 
the Father’s heart or the power of the Father’s 
arm.” Loyal trust in God raised him above cir¬ 
cumstances and appearances. It gave steadfast¬ 
ness to his whole character, and brought his daily 
walk very near to the gates of heaven. His biog¬ 
rapher says: “Loyalty to truth, the obedience of 
faith, the sacrifice of love—these form the three¬ 
fold key which unlocks to us all the closed cham¬ 
bers of his life.” He dealt directly with God in 
all; he recognized but one Agent, men being only 
instrumentalities. He knew no disappointment or 
despondency, for he leaned always upon the living 
God, who never fails. His one business being to 
please the Lord, he found all his circumstances 
becoming his servants. 

He was born in Prussia, September 27, 18051 
he fell asleep in Jesus, at Bristol, March 10, 1898, 
in his ninety-third year. A few months before, he 


George Mueller . 


83 


said: “I have been able every day, and all the day, 
to work, and that with ease, as seventy years 
since.” He felt no weakness or weariness in his 
work until the very last night of his earthly so¬ 
journ. He himself attributed his vigor largely to 
the love he felt for the Scriptures and the con¬ 
stantly recuperative power they exercised upon his 
whole being, and to that happiness he felt in God 
and his work which relieved him of all anxiety 
and needless wear and tear in his labors. He passed 
away very quietly, in the night, all alone, from 
heart-failure. He belonged to the whole Church 
and the whole world, and the whole race of man 
sustained a great loss when he left them. As 
Wesley’s life spanned the eighteenth century, 
Mueller’s spanned the nineteenth. The two men, 
while very unlike in many of their opinions, were 
marvelously similar in their spirit and labors. 
Both of them exhort us, as with trumpet tongues, 
to be in earnest, to walk by faith, and to live for 
eternity. 


What matter, friend, though you and I 
May sow and others gather ? 

We build and others occupy, 

Each laboring for the other! 

What though we toil from sun to sun, 
And men forget to flatter 
The noblest work our hands have done— 
If God approves, what matter? 


It is not the deed we do, 

Though the deed be never so fair, 

But the love that the dear Lord looketh for, 
Hidden with holy care 
In the heart of the deed so fair. 


God has his best things for the few 
Who dare to stand the test; 

He has His second choice for those 
Who will not have His best. 


84 





AD ONI RAM JUDSON. 


The wisest man could ask no more of Fate 
Than to be simple, modest, manly, true, 

Safe from the many, honored by the few, 

To count as naught in world of Church or State, 
But inwardly in secret to be great. 


86 



ADONIRAM JUDSON. 


Among the saints of modern times must be 
reckoned a very large number of missionaries, 
a number so large that no ordinary volume could 
do justice to them. Their shining examples have 
been a wonderful stimulus to the Church univer¬ 
sal, one of the glories of Christianity. As a 
worthy specimen of this whole illustrious class 
we have selected Adoniram Judson. Theodore 
Parker’s remark about him is well known, and 
often quoted. It is to the effect that if all which 
had ever been done for missions had produced 
only one such character as Adoniram Judson, it 
would have been well worth the entire expend¬ 
iture. A New York merchant in his boyhood 
read Wayland’s “Life of Judson,” laid down the 
book, left his chamber, went out into a green 
meadow belonging to his father’s farm, and there 
consecrated his young life to the service of God. 
Doubtless very many such instances have oc- 
87 


88 


The Saintly Calling . 


curred. Certainly many such tributes as Park¬ 
er’s have been paid. 

The external life of this great missionary need 
not detain us, nor be given save in barest outline. 
It is the internal life that we are occupied with 
in these sketches. He was born at Malden, 
Mass., August 9, 1788 (his father being a min¬ 
ister settled there), graduated valedictorian at 
Brown University, 1807, sailed for India, Febru¬ 
ary 19, 1812, arrived at Rangoon, July 13, 1813, 
suffered cruel imprisonment at Ava, 1825, visited 
America for his health, 1845, died at sea, April 
12, 1850. 

His conversion took place at the Andover The¬ 
ological Seminary in 1808. While not attended 
with overpowering exercises and rather gradual 
than sudden, it produced a very marked change 
in him, and he never had occasion to doubt its 
deep reality. His call to the mission field was 
somewhat similar. It culminated in February, 
1810. There had been thought about it for many 
months, but, as he says, “It was during a solitary 
walk in the woods behind the college while medi- 


Adoniram Judson . 


89 


tating and praying on the subject and feeling half 
inclined to give it up, that the command of Christ, 
‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel 
to every creature/ was presented to my mind with 
such clearness and power that I came to a full 
decision, and, though great difficulties appeared 
in the way, resolved to obey the command at all 
hazards, for the sake of pleasing the Lord Jesus 
Christ.” 

To please God was henceforth his main pur¬ 
pose, and it eventually became his only one. In 
tracing the course of his experience we are im¬ 
pressed by nothing more distinctly than by his 
intense love of pre-eminence, his determination 
everywhere to be first and to reach perfection 
at all possible points. From early youth to latest 
age this stamped his character and gave direction 
to his endeavors. He had powers that would have 
carried him to the front and made him illustrious 
in any calling. He was endowed with a will of 
the very highest order, and had a spirit of in¬ 
domitable perseverance. From the beginning he 
gave himself with the greatest earnestness to sub- 


9 o 


The Saintly Calling . 


jecting everything within him to the obedience 
of Christ. His first wife, after living with him 
eleven years, wrote: “I feel that there is not a 
better man on the globe than my husband, not 
one who labors more strenuously to overcome 
every unhallowed emotion of his spirit.” There 
was a great deal in his natural disposition that 
needed to be overcome, and, eager as he was to 
excel, with the loftiest conception of what a Chris¬ 
tian ought to be, he could not rest content with 
any ordinary attainments or be satisfied while 
aught remained susceptible of improvement. He 
left no stone unturned to achieve the results which 
seemed to him of highest worth. 

The rules and regulations which from time to 
time he adopted in his earnest striving after per¬ 
sonal holiness were very many. We append a 
few of them: “Whatever others do, let my life 
be a life of prayer ; observe three seasons of se¬ 
cret prayer every day, morning, noon, and night; 
live under a constant sense of the presence of 
God; deny self at every turn so far as consistent 
with life, health, and usefulness; learn to distin- 


Adoniram Judson . 


91 


guish and obey the internal impulses of the Holy 
Spirit; keep turning the soul to God until it habit¬ 
ually rests in God; do nothing from your own 
will, but all from the will of God; see the hand 
of God in all events, and thereby become recon¬ 
ciled to His dispensations; have the Scripture and 
some devotional book in constant reading; be 
sweet in temper, voice, and word, to please the 
ever-present Lord.” He deeply felt, as he writes 
to a friend, “the comparative insignificance of all 
human accomplishments and the overwhelming 
importance of spiritual graces, the habitual enjoy¬ 
ment of closet religion, a soul abstracted from 
the world and much occupied in the contempla¬ 
tion of heavenly glories.” 

He was so determined on completest victory 
over every besetment that he took some steps 
that have subjected him to criticism as border¬ 
ing on an unhealthy extreme and trending per¬ 
ilously near the verge of fanaticism. But his 
vigorous intellect, which his extreme sufferings 
might well have shaken from its balance, yet 
did not, kept him within bounds. It is true that 


92 


The Saintly Calling . 


what he did in the way of self-mortification and 
crucifixion can hardly be commended as an ex¬ 
ample to all. Each must judge in his own case 
what steps are necessary to accomplish the end 
of complete union with Christ. That Judson 
went too far many will be disposed to say, but 
let them inquire carefully whether they them¬ 
selves have gone far enough. His love of fame, 
originally excessive, troubled him much. To 
check it he cultivated a desire to be forgotten, 
and insisted on the destruction of all the letters 
he had sent to sister and mother, as well as im¬ 
portant papers; he also declined the degree of 
Doctor of Divinity. To counteract any fondness 
for worldly goods, he gave to the mission all that 
came to him from the British Government for 
his most valuable services at Ava, 7,200 rupees; 
and a little later made over also to the society 
12,000 rupees of his private property. Not far 
from this time he relinquished to the society one- 
fourth of his allowance (by no means large), 
severely restricting his mode of living, and of¬ 
fered to give up one-tenth more under certain 


Adoniram Judson . 


93 


conditions. After the death of his wife he moved 
into a small cottage which he had built in the 
woods, away from the haunts of men, that he 
might devote himself undistractedly to learning 
the art of real communion with God. He cru¬ 
cified his love of literature by restricting himself 
very early in his missionary life, from principle 
and on what he thought sound policy for one in 
his position, to his own work, not branching out 
in any direction, even as a recreation, in literary 
or scientific lines, either Burman or English. He 
denied his social instincts, breaking off not only 
from fashionable dinners with his English friends, 
but from intimate association with the mission¬ 
aries, partly from lack of congeniality of thought, 
partly from his sense of the value of time. Cer¬ 
tainly not all who seek highest attainments in 
grace are summoned to these means, or would 
be justified in adopting them. Different situ¬ 
ations call for different methods. What is to be 
unreservedly commended in Judson is the deter¬ 
mination which he showed to stick at nothing that 
seemed to him, in his condition, requisite to make 


94 


The Saintly Calling . 


himself perfectly pleasing in the sight of God. 
We are not authorized to say that he should have 
done otherwise, or could have done less. We are 
warranted in declaring that the end he sought 
was right, and every way worthy of largest sac¬ 
rifice. He was thoroughly in earnest. He set 
about waging a war of extermination against 
pride and selfishness in all their forms, tracing 
them to their last retreats, getting rid of them 
altogether, and reaching oneness with the Divine. 
Whether he reached all that he wished or not, 
the effect of the measures he took seems to have 
been good. For the rest of his life he was marked 
by a loving trust in God under the most discour¬ 
aging circumstances, and by a supremely disinter¬ 
ested devotedness which he had not known before, 
and which is very rarely seen anywhere. 

His humility was exceeding great, and per¬ 
haps lacked nothing of entire perfectness. It had 
that appearance to those who met him on his one 
visit to America. The more men praised him the 
more deeply did he feel his own deficiencies and 
the imperfection of his services, the more abso- 


Adoniram Judson. 


95 


lute was his renunciation of all merit for any¬ 
thing he had done, the more complete his loyal 
prostration at the foot of the cross, the more en¬ 
tire his reliance for acceptance on the atoning sac¬ 
rifice of Jesus. He lived, in all simplicity of heart, 
for no other purpose than to advance the interests 
of the Redeemer’s kingdom, for which he was at 
any moment ready and glad to die. Earnestness 
was the quality that stood out in him most clear 
to view at every point. The motto of his father, 
“Keep straight forward and trust in God,” he 
made conspicuously his own. His faith in God 
acquired a rare development, and was in the high¬ 
est degree memorable. Erom the beginning hq, 
had the most entire certainty as to the result of his 
labors, never doubting how they would come out. 
When people asked him if the prospects of suc¬ 
cess were bright, his reply was, “As bright as 
the promises of God.” On the inner cover of 
one of his most frequently used books he wrote: 

“ In joy or sorrow, health or pain, 

Our course be onward still; 

We sow on Burma’s barren plain 
We reap on Zion’s hill,” 


9 6 


The Saintly Calling. 


He was greatly indebted for spiritual counsel 
to Madame Guyon’s works, Kempis’s ‘‘Imitation 
of Christ, ,, William Law’s “Christian Perfec¬ 
tion,” and the “Life of Payson.” He frequently 
recommended these books to others. It was soon 
after being helped by them that he wrote to a 
brother missionary: “The land of Beulah lies 
beyond the valley of the shadow of death. Many 
Christians spend all their days in a continual 
bustle doing good. They are too busy to find 
either the valley or Beulah. Let us die as soon 
as possible, and by whatever path God shall ap¬ 
point. And when we are dead to the world and 
nature and self, we shall begin to live to God.” 

The very “lust for finishing,” which he speaks 
of as “one of his failings,” which enabled him 
to carry on to completion that marvelously per¬ 
fect translation of the Bible into Burmese, which 
remains his chief earthly monument to-day, a 
translation perhaps never surpassed in any lan¬ 
guage, an imperishable monument of his genius, 
made it impossible for him to stop short of any 
attainable achievement in piety. Improvement 


Adoniram Judson . 


97 


went on to the last as he steadily cleansed him¬ 
self from every remaining defilement of flesh or 
spirit. Mrs. Emily Judson, his third wife, tes¬ 
tifies as to his closing days: “He had been from 
my first acquaintance with him an uncommonly 
spiritual Christian, exhibiting his richest graces 
in the unguarded intercourse of private life. But 
during his last years it seemed as though the 
light of the world on which he was entering had 
been sent to brighten his upward pathway. Every 
subject on which he conversed, every book we 
read, every incident that occurred, whether trivial 
or important, had a tendency to suggest some 
peculiarly spiritual train of thought till it seemed 
to me that more than ever before Christ was all 
his theme.” “O the love of Christ,” was a fre¬ 
quent exclamation in his last illness. “Peace” 
and “Victory” were words much on his lips. “I 
am not tired of my work,” he said, “neither am I 
tired of the world, yet when Christ calls me home 
I shall go with the gladness of a boy bounding 
away from his school.” It was thus he went, 
with no uncertainty as to the future. His life 
7 


9 8 


The Saintly Calling. 


had been spent wholly for Jesus, or as nearly so 
as falls to the lot of mortals, and his acceptance 
of God’s will in all its ramifications had been mar¬ 
velously complete, and both by the extent of his 
labors and the purity of his purpose he had fully 
deserved the hearty “Well done” which we are 
entirely certain he received. 


Who trusts in God’s unchanging love 
Builds on a rock that naught can move. 

God never yet forsook at need 
The soul that trusted Him indeed. 


A nameless man amid the crowd 
That thronged the daily mart, 
Tet fall a word of hope and love, 
Unstudied from the heart; 

A whisper o’er the tumult thrown, 
A transitory breath, 

It raised a brother from the dust, 
It saved a soul from death. 

O germ, O fount, O breath of love, 
O word at random cast, 

Thou wert but little at the first, 
But mighty at the last! 



AMOS LA WRENCE. 


The heart that trusts forever sings, 
And feels as light as it had wings— 
A well of peace within it springs; 
Come good or ill, 

Whate’er to-day, to-morrow brings, 
It is His will. 


IOO 





AMOS LAWRENCE. 


It would be a great mistake if we were for a 
moment to imagine that only ministers and mis¬ 
sionaries can be eminent in piety or have a place 
in the ranks of the saints. Most religious me¬ 
moirs are occupied with this class, but it is partly 
at least because they are more apt than others to 
leave written memorials behind them. Undoubt¬ 
edly there have been, and are, in so-called secular 
pursuits great numbers every whit as pleasing to 
God and every way as worthy of being commemo¬ 
rated for their entire consecration to highest ideals 
as those more usually accounted models of devo¬ 
tion. It is fully as important and as possible to 
have examples of shining excellence in business 
or professional life as in evangelistic vocations. 
There are varied manifestations and ministrations 
under the guidance of the same Lord, diversities 
of gifts and workings under the filling of the 
same Spirit. It is certainly of the first conse- 


ioi 


102 The Saintly Calling . 

quence that this be fully recognized. And so we 
take pleasure in presenting here some notes on the 
experience of Amos Lawrence. He is a splendid 
specimen of religion in business, well deserving 
to be included in any list of modern Protestant 
saints. 

His days quite naturally fall in three parts, 
of nearly equal duration. For the first twenty- 
one years he was at home at Groton, Mass., 
where he was born of unadulterated Puritan 
stock, April 22, 1786. Only one incident of note 
occurred in this time. As clerk in a general coun¬ 
try store, where, according to the custom of that 
period, large quantities of intoxicants were sold 
and drunk, he was exposed to severe temptation. 
He speedily made up his mind and resolutely 
took a stand, remarkable for that day, from which 
he never thenceforward for a moment departed, 
a stand of total abstinence, not only from liquor, 
but from all forms of tobacco. Many years after¬ 
ward he said, “To this simple fact of starting 
just right I am indebted, with God’s blessing on 
my labors, for my present position.” 


Amos Lawrence . 


103 


December 17, 1807, he commenced business 
in Boston, without a dollar; and for the next 
twenty-four years devoted himself assiduously to 
his duties as head of a house of importers which 
speedily become one of the most flourishing in the 
city. It was just about this time, when he was 
less than twenty-two, that he wrote to his sister 
as follows: “Many, when speaking of perfec¬ 
tion, say it is not attainable, or hitherto unattain¬ 
able, and it is therefore vain to try to hope for it. 
To such I would observe that, from motives of 
duty to our Creator and ambition in ourselves, 
we ought to strive for it, at least so far as not to 
be distanced by those who have preceded us.” 
That he did earnestly strive for it, and with a 
wonderful degree of success, his subsequent years 
bear witness. He had an exceedingly high stand¬ 
ard, both in temporal and spiritual affairs, “a 
standard of action,” as he himself says, in writ¬ 
ing to his brother, “so high as to require great 
vigilance in living up to it.” Sterling honesty 
stamped every transaction, together with the 
strictest sense of justice. He was unwilling to 


104 7 X* Saintly Calling . 

turn to his own advantage the ignorance or mis¬ 
fortune of others; he stooped to no artifice or 
deceits; he commanded universal confidence as a 
man of the most unbending integrity on which 
no spot or blemish ever rested. His moral per¬ 
ceptions and sensibilities were of the keenest, and 
it is asserted, with good reason, that he never 
deviated a hair’s breadth from what he felt to be 
his duty. It was this that constituted the 
strength of his character, his supreme reverence 
for the right and his unfaltering pursuit of it. 
His business became very extensive, so much so 
that he found it, as he says, “occupying his 
thoughts to a degree entirely disproportionate to 
its importance.” He found, he writes January 
i, 1826, “that communion which ought ever to 
be kept free between man and his Maker inter¬ 
rupted by the incessant calls of the multifarious 
affairs of our establishment.” He terms it “the 
extreme of folly” to acquire property at such a 
sacrifice of the highest interests, and promptly 
made arrangements to diminish his burdens. His 
responsibilities to God were ever kept uppermost. 


Amos Lawrence . 105 

and the account to be rendered at last was never 
lost sight of. 

The third period of his life began June I, 
1831, and extended till his departure from earth, 
December 31, 1852. In the full tide of a most 
successful career as one of the leading mill- 
owners and commission merchants of the coun¬ 
try, he was suddenly stricken down by a stomach 
trouble which left him an invalid for the rest of 
his days, days which were prolonged only by the 
most rigid watchfulness, especially in the matter 
of diet, in which he exercised almost inconceiv¬ 
able abstinence, sitting down at no meal with his 
family, weighing every particle of solid or liquid 
food. He bore this deep affliction in the most 
beautiful manner, even as he had done a previous 
test. (At the death of his beloved wife, whose 
removal blasted his dearest earthly hopes, Janu¬ 
ary 14, 1819, he writes: “But God reigns; let 
us rejoice.”) January 1, 1832, confined to his 
sick-room, he writes, “I can see nothing but the 
unbounded goodness of our Heavenly Father 
and best friend in all that has been taken from 


106 The Saintly Calling . 

me, as well as in all that is left to me. I can say 
with sincerity that I never have had so much to 
call forth my warmest and deepest gratitude for 
favors bestowed as at the present time. Among 
my sources of happiness is the settled conviction 
that, in chastening His children, God desires their 
good; and if His chastenments are thus viewed 
we can regard them in no other light than as 
manifestations of His Fatherly care and kind¬ 
ness. We are placed here to be disciplined for 
another and higher state, and whatever happens 
to us makes a part of that discipline.” He was 
more than contented. Writing December 23, 
1833, he says, “The situation which I occupy is 
one that I would not exchange, if I had the power, 
with 'any man living.” In 1838 he says, “I am 
the happiest man living, and yet would willingly 
exchange worlds this day, if it be the good pleas¬ 
ure of our good Friend and Father in heaven. I 
can see the good hand of God in all my expe¬ 
riences for thirty years.” 

In these twenty-one years during which his 
peculiar illness entirely incapacitated him for ac- 


Amos Lawrence . 


107 

tive business life, he gave whatever time and 
strength he could command to a philanthropic ca¬ 
reer which has had few, if any, parallels. Pre¬ 
vious to this his charities had begun to be sys¬ 
tematic and munificent, as his increasing wealth 
permitted, but now they took on a yet more thor¬ 
ough-going character. In the fullest sense of the 
term he lived for others. It was truly said of 
him, “Every day of his life was a blessing to 
somebody.” He loved his neighbor, and under 
that term took in the whole human family. Two 
rooms in his house, and sometimes three, were 
used mainly to receive useful articles for distri¬ 
bution. He selected and carried out or sent out, 
far and near, innumerable packages carefully 
adapted to the wants of the recipients, whether 
those wants were in the line of food, clothing, 
books, money, or other tokens of affection. He 
scattered vast quantities of the publications of the 
American Tract Society and the Sunday-school 
Union. He was especially fond of “Life in Ear¬ 
nest” and other deeply religious works of the 
Rev. James Hamilton, of London, and sent forth 


108 The Saintly Calling . 

whole editions. He took 2,000 copies of a lec¬ 
ture by this Scotch minister on the “Literary At¬ 
tractions of the Bible/’ He became very much 
interested in Williams College, and gave to it, un¬ 
solicited, large sums in most timely ways, more 
than any one else had done up to that day. In 
his letters to President Hopkins he expresses 
deep concern for the salvation of the souls of the 
students, praying God to perfect the good work 
which he rejoices to hear has begun. The Theo¬ 
logical School at Bangor was also one of the ob¬ 
jects of his bounty. He made at least ten per¬ 
sons life directors of the American Bible Society 
by the payment of $150 for each. The comple¬ 
tion of the Bunker Hill Monument was largely 
his work. These are but specimens of the things 
he was constantly doing. It is calculated that he 
gave away during his life time for the benefit of 
his fellowmen not less than $700,000—gave it 
with personal attention and sympathy, gave it as 
a Christian man, from a sense of divine obliga¬ 
tion and a deep feeling of the duties of steward¬ 
ship. Probably no one up to that time had given 


Amos Lawrence . 


109 


as much while living. He never felt at liberty 
to waste on himself what could be beneficially ap¬ 
plied to the good of those around him. And he 
found, it hardly need be said, intense pleasure in 
the course he took. 

He was by faith a Unitarian of the old school, 
a constant attendant and faithful communicant in 
the Brattle Street Church. His pastor, Dr. Loth- 
rop, speaks of his “profound reverence for the 
sacred Scriptures and the divine authority of 
Jesus Christ. He believed in Christ as the Mes¬ 
siah and Savior of the world, and therefore found 
peace and strength to his soul amid all the perils 
and duties and sorrows of life. ,, He loved to 
listen at Church to those who did not shun to 
declare the whole counsel of God, and would ex¬ 
press disappointment when the preacher failed to 
emphasize the important truths of the Gospel. 
He had a dread of the German rationalism which 
he saw creeping in, and rejoiced when, as he 
writes, “deep feelings of sin and salvation 
through the Beloved are awakened.” He counted 
himself “a disciple and follower of Christ the 


no 


The Saintly Calling . 


Beloved,” and says, “I will not quarrel with a 
man’s Presbyterian, Episcopal, or Baptist creed 
so be he will act the part of a good soldier of 
Jesus Christ; for I verily believe great multi¬ 
tudes of all Christians desire to serve him faith¬ 
fully. I have no hope in isms, but have a strong 
hope in the cross of Christ.” At his funeral 
officiated three of his most intimate and valued 
friends, representing three different denomina¬ 
tions—Dr. Eothrop, Dr. Hopkins, and Dr. Sharp, 
pastor of the Charles Street Baptist Church. His 
spirit was of the largest and most catholic sort. 
Religion was everything to him. He was a man 
of habitual prayer, a loving disciple who breathed 
very much the spirit of the Master, with a firm 
faith in Providence and an abiding trust in the 
lovingkindness of the Father. He held family 
prayers morning and evening. There do not 
seem to have been any special crises in his re¬ 
ligious experience. His character was rather a 
gradual development from the germs planted 
deep within far back in the years of childhood by 
the devout hands of godly parents. One of his 


Amos Lawrence. 


hi 


letters contains this sentence: “He indeed is rich 
in grace whose graces are not hindered by his 
riches.” This is most true. Tried by this test, 
Amos Lawrence was rich in grace. His example 
will speak, we trust, to some who would be less 
impressed by the piety of those who are poorer in 
this world’s wealth or less occupied with earthly 
care. 

It was Amos A. Lawrence, a son of Amos, 
and very much like him in character, though 
Episcopalian in denominational preference, after 
whom the city of Lawrence, Kansas, was named, 
and Lawrence University, at Appleton, Wiscon¬ 
sin. Amos’s brother, Abbott, came within a few 
votes of being President of the United States; 
for him was named the city of Lawrence, Mass., 
and the Lawrence Scientific School, Cambridge. 


It I truly love the One, 

All the loves are mine; 
Alien to my heart is none, 
And life grows divine. 


Unheard, because our ears are dull, 
Unseen, because our eyes are dim, 
He walks our earth, the Wonderful, 
And all good deeds are done to Him. 


All’s alike to me, so I 
In my Lord may live and die. 


Come to me, come to me, 0 my God! 

Come to me, everywhere! 

Let the trees mean Thee, and the grassy sod, 
And the water, and the air. 


To live, to live, is life’s great joy, and to feel 
The living God within, to look abroad 
And, in the beauty that all things reveal, 
Still meet the living God. 


112 



FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER. 


8 


Source of my life’s refreshing springs, 
Whose presence in my heart sustains me, 
Thy love appoints my pleasant things, 

Thy mercy orders all that pains me. 

H4 


FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER. 


So far as can be ascertained there was never 
in Faber’s experience any marked crisis which 
could properly be labeled “conversion,” as the 
term is generally used. From his earliest days 
he was naturally and decidedly religious. Spring¬ 
ing from Huguenot stock, born in the vicarage 
of Calverley, Yorkshire, England, June 28, 1814, 
his father and grandfather both being in clerical 
work, and his teachers all clergymen, his life de¬ 
veloped in all good things very evenly and with¬ 
out a break. At Oxford University he estab¬ 
lished a number of prayer-meetings, led in a sys¬ 
tem of aggressive religious efforts, and became 
the spiritual guide of quite a circle, very much 
as another deeply pious young man, John Wesley 
by name, did at this same university a century be¬ 
fore. His letters of the period express gratitude 
for “ the quiet influences of George Herbert, and 
the dear, dear Bible.” He says also: “I am now 
115 


Ii6 The Saintly Calling . 

never happy unless I am thinking, talking, and 
writing respecting things eternal.” He was de¬ 
voted to the cause of Christ, thoroughly identi¬ 
fied with it, most sincere and single-eyed in his 
search for truth. 

He was matriculated at Balliol College in 
1832, became a fellow of University College in 
1837, and was ordained a priest in the Church of 
England in 1839. April, 1843, preached his 
first sermon as rector of Elton, and continued 
laboring there indefatigably, successfully, until 
November 17, 1845, when he was received into 
the Roman Catholic Church. In this communion 
he remained until his death, September 26, 1863, 
intensely attached to it, and laboring for its in¬ 
terests, first at Birmingham, then at London, as 
father superior of the Oratory of St. Philip. 

Our business here is not with his doctrinal 
views or ecclesiastical relations, but with his spir¬ 
itual experience. That went straight onward in 
the one Church as in the other, until he came to 
be own brother to Kempis, Molinos, Francis of 
Sales, Fenelon, and the many other saints of the 
Roman Catholic Church whose lives it was his 


Frederick William Faber . 117 

highest delight to study, and who are the common 
inspiration of all good people. 

Love for Jesus, union with God, the will divine 
—these phrases, especially the last, sum up the 
ruling passion of his years. A more intense de¬ 
sire to know God’s will could not exist, we think, 
in any human heart. When he was in the stress 
of the struggle which culminated in his depart¬ 
ure from Anglicanism, his sufferings and agonies 
were so great that they left physical injuries in 
his system from which he never recovered. He 
really feared that he should lose his mind. He 
dreaded exceedingly anything like the intrusion 
of self-will, or some motive not the purest. His 
zeal for God consumed him. Above all things he 
craved honesty to seek God’s will, light to find it, 
love to know it when found, and strength to 
follow it. 

A spirit of special devotion to God’s holy 
will he cultivated incessantly, aiming to recog¬ 
nize it and love it in every smallest vexation, 
deeming that in this way best he could resemble 
Jesus, whose “meat” was “to do the will” of the 


118 The Saintly Calling . 

Father. Rodriguez on “Conformity to God's 
Will” he read again, and again, and again. At 
Birmingham he organized his followers into a re¬ 
ligious community under the name “Brothers of 
the Will of God.” “Voluntas Dei” “God's will,” 
was his life motto, embroidered on his clothing 
and stamped upon his heart. “The music of the 
Will” sounded in his soul entrancingly; he lis¬ 
tened for it with keenest eagerness, fearing most 
of all lest self in some way should deaden his 
senses to its whispers. Not all the world could 
induce him to swerve from it knowingly in the 
smallest matter. “I have no plans,” he says; “I 
have been simply praying to know God’s will; I 
would not lift up a finger either way to decide 
it.” It was in this way, from the prevalence in 
the center of his being of this overmastering pas¬ 
sion, that he came to write that deepest and 
strongest of all the hymns that treat of the higher 
life: 

“ I worship Thee, sweet Will of God, 

And all Thy ways adore, 

And every day I live I seem 
To love Thee more and more.” 


Frederick William Faber . 119 

Love ruled him wholly. When incessant 
curses were fulminated from the pulpits of the 
State Church against him and his work, he re¬ 
plied : “One thing, by God’s grace, you will not 
provoke us to, and that is, one really uncharitable 
thought, or one really unkind word.” “I love 
Jesus more, and more, and more; every day it 
seems as if I had never loved Him before, so 
sweet, so new, so fresh does He seem every morn¬ 
ing.” “Jesus, my daily Guest, my Lord, my Life, 
my Love, my All.” He was exceedingly humble, 
and so, of course, exceedingly happy. His lan¬ 
guage was: “I could dance and sing all day, be¬ 
cause I am so joyous; I hardly know what to do 
with myself for very happiness.” Yet his health 
was very poor; he had violent headaches very 
often, and other severe illnesses frequently broke 
in upon the continuity of his work. As he says 
in one of his hymns: 

“ O Lord, I always live in pain, 

My life’s sad undersong, 

Pain in itself not hard to bear, 

But hard to bear so long.” 


120 The Saintly Calling . 

But he bore it in the noblest way, with a courage 
unfaltering, and an unceasing desire for the glory 
of his Master. His whole life was a prayer. He 
writes: “It is so incredibly sweet to pray; the 
face of God grows daily more clear.” 

His preaching was amazingly effective. Its 
topic was, not controversy, but Christ; and great 
multitudes were won to the Lord. Living him¬ 
self in the light and peace of God, and longing 
exceedingly to make others possess the happiness 
he enjoyed, it is no wonder that throngs hung 
upon his words. 

He was an indefatigable reader, especially in 
subjects pertaining to the spiritual life. What¬ 
ever had any bearing on this he sought for 
eagerly. His own writings in prose and poetry 
have laid the world under a vast debt His prose 
works, to say nothing of very many books trans¬ 
lated and edited, consist of eight solid, close- 
printed volumes, all issued in the short space of 
eight years. Of the first one, “All for Jesus,” 
which met with some criticism, he says: “There 
shall be no controversy. If there be an ounce 


Frederick William Faber . 


I 2 I 


more of glory to God in my condemnation and 
the proscription of my book, I am only too glad 
to be the means of His getting it. If it causes one 
heart to love our dearest Lord a trifle more 
warmly, God will have blessed both the work and 
its writer far above their deservings.” In the 
preface of another book he says: “It is an im¬ 
mense mercy of God to allow any one to do the 
least thing which brings souls nearer to Him.” 
In regard to the surpassing beauty of his hymns, 
and their priceless value, the whole Christian 
world has but one verdict. 

When he passed to his great reward a high 
authority said of him: “We know of no one 
man who has done more to make the men of his 
day love God and aspire to a higher path of in¬ 
terior life.” Another whb knew him from boy¬ 
hood, Cardinal Manning, said: “I never saw any 
one so detached from the world, though he lived 
in the world; if ever there was a higher or lower 
path to choose, he always chose the higher.” He 
must have been one of the most lovable men that 
ever lived. The charm of his manner, the ten- 


122 


The Saintly Calling. 


derness of his heart, the genuineness of his sym¬ 
pathy, the brilliancy of his social powers, the 
ripeness of his worldly wisdom, and the unearthli¬ 
ness of his aims, formed a very rare and power¬ 
ful combination. His biographer sums up his 
example in the simple but significant sentence: 
“He served Jesus out of love.” It surely is per¬ 
mitted to us, and enjoined on us, to do the same. 
Though without his remarkable gifts of elo¬ 
quence and poetry, we may imitate the deep en¬ 
thusiasm for goodness which so constantly con¬ 
sumed him, and catch the glowing spirit of entire 
consecration which stamped his whole career. 


Thou who hast given me eyes to see, 

And love this sight so fair, 

Give me a heart to find out Thee 
And read Thee everywhere. 

The fire burns brighter when with Thee I look, 
And seems the kinder servant sent to me; 
With gladder eyes I read Thy Holy Book, 
Because Thou art the eyes with which I see. 



THOMAS J. JACKSON. 


Nay, nay, do not tell me that, wrapped in His glory, 
He hears not my voice when I cry; 

He made me, He loves me, He knows all my story, 

I shall look in His face when I die. 


124 


THOMAS J. JACKSON. 


Thomas Jonathan Jackson was born Jan¬ 
uary 21, 1824, studied at West Point from 1842 
to 1846, served in the Mexican War 1846-48, 
was baptized April 29, 1849, Fort Hamilton, 
Tong Island, in the Episcopal Church, joined the 
Presbyterian Church at Lexington, Va., where 
he was professor in the Military Institute from 
1851 to 1861, and then served in the Confed¬ 
erate Army till his death, May 10, 1863. Our 
business here is not with the secular details of 
his life, furnished by the various biographies, 
but with his remarkable attainments in religion. 
We question if anybody surpassed him in this, 
if any one was ever more uncompromisingly and 
perfectly consecrated to God, if we could find 
anywhere a saintlier walk. 

So scrupulous was he in the performance of 
his duties that he would not neglect even the 
smallest, saying: “One instance would be a pre- 
125 


126 


The Saintly Calling . 


cedent for another, and thus my rules would be 
broken down.” After his conscience decided on 
a course as right, his resolution and independence 
enabled him to carry out his principles with total 
disregard of the opinions of the world. He 
thought it was a great weakness in others to care 
what impression their conduct made upon public 
opinion if their conscience was only clear. The 
fear of the Lord was the only fear he knew. 
After he became a Christian he set his face 
against all worldly conformity, giving up danc¬ 
ing, theater-going, and every other amusement 
that had a tendency to lead his thoughts away 
from holy things. When the question was raised 
as to the right or wrong of indulgences that 
many considered innocent, he would say pleas¬ 
antly, “Well, I know it is not wrong not to do it, 
so I am going to be on the safe side.” His rule 
was never to make any compromise with his prin¬ 
ciples. But there was not a particle of asceticism 
or gloom in his religion. It shed perpetual sun¬ 
shine upon his life. He had a smile most sweet 
and gracious. 


Thomas J. Jackson . 


127 


His faith and trust led him to feel under all 
circumstances that nothing could happen to him 
but what was sent in wisdom and love by his 
Heavenly Father. No text was more frequently 
on his lips than that which has been such a favor¬ 
ite with all God’s chosen ones: “We know that 
all things work together for good to them that 
love God.” He so ruled his life that he never in¬ 
advertently fell into the use of the common ex¬ 
pressions, always upon most people’s lips, involv¬ 
ing the wish that some event were different from 
what it was. To do so would, in his opinion, 
have been to arraign Providence. “Do n’t you 
wish it would stop raining?” might be the care¬ 
less remark made to him after a week of wet 
weather. His smiling reply would invariably be, 
“Yes, if the Maker of the weather thinks it best.” 

He seems to have literally and absolutely pre¬ 
ferred God’s will to his own; and his perfect as¬ 
surance of faith never forsook him, however se¬ 
verely it might be tried. He used to express sur¬ 
prise at the want of equanimity of Christians 
under untoward circumstances, and remarked 


128 


The Saintly Calling, 


that he did not think any combination of earthly 
ills could make him positively unhappy if he be¬ 
lieved he was suffering the will of God. A friend 
once said to him, “Suppose, Major, you should 
lose your health without any hope of recovering 
it, do you think you could be happy?” “Yes, I 
should be happy still,” he replied. “But,” con¬ 
tinued his friend, “suppose you should lose your 
eyesight and become perfectly blind, would not 
that be too much for you?” “No,” he replied 
calmly. His friend, still persisting, then said: 
“Suppose, though, that besides losing your health 
and becoming entirely blind, you should lose all 
your property, and so be left lying in bed a help¬ 
less invalid depending for support on the chari¬ 
ties of your friends, would not that be too much 
for you?” Jackson was silent for a moment, and 
then said, in a reverent tone: “If it were the 
will of God to place me there, he would enable 
me to lie there peacefully a hundred years.” 

He contributed every year one-tenth of his 
income to the Church, and was a liberal giver to 
all causes of benevolence and public enterprise. 


Thomas y. yackson. 129 

He never used intoxicants, from principle, 
though having a fondness for them. Nor did he 
use tobacco in any form, and for many years not 
even tea and coffee, believing that they were in¬ 
jurious to his health. Nor could anything tempt 
him to partake of food between his regular hours. 
When persons about him complained of head¬ 
aches or other consequences of imprudence he 
would say: “If you follow my rule, which is to 
govern yourself absolutely, I do not think you 
would have these sufferings. My head never 
aches; if anything disagrees with me I never 
eat it.” 

He was very careful in his speech, weighing 
his lightest utterances in the balance of the sanc¬ 
tuary. His crystalline truthfulness was ever no¬ 
ticeable, even in the admission that he did not 
know facts or things, when really there was no 
appeal made to his knowledge, except the com¬ 
mon “you know” which many so frequently use. 
Nothing could induce him to make the impres¬ 
sion that he knew what he did not. “I have no 
genius for seeming,” he said. His ideas of hon- 


9 


130 The Saintly Calling . 

esty were equally rigid; also of humility, and 
punctuality. No one could ever charge him with 
loss of time through dilatoriness on his part. 
When the day approached for him to return from 
Europe, after a brief vacation, he sailed for 
America, leaving himself ample time to get back 
to his class in the Military Institute at the open¬ 
ing of the session. The steamer being, however, 
unexpectedly delayed, he did not reach home for 
a week or two after the appointed day. His 
friends, knowing how exact and punctual to the 
minute he was, thought this would be a very 
great annoyance to him. On reaching home one 
of them asked him how he stood the delay, and 
if he were not beside himself with impatience. 
“Not at all,” he replied; “I set out to return at 
the proper time; I did my duty; the steamer was 
delayed by act of Providence, and I was perfectly 
satisfied.” 

As an instance of the alacrity with which, if 
once convinced that a thing was right to do, he 
did it, this may fitly be quoted. On one occasion 
he had been talking of self-abnegation and mak- 


Thomas J. Jackson . 131 

ing rather light of it, when a friend suggested 
that he had not been called to endure it, and sup¬ 
posed a case: “Imagine that Providence seemed 
to direct you to drop every scheme of life and of 
personal advancement and go on a mission to the 
heart of Africa for the rest of your days, would 
you go?” His eyes flashed, as he instantly re¬ 
plied : “I would go without my hat.” 

He was a mighty man of prayer. During the 
war, on the eve of every move Jackson devoted 
all his spare moments to petitions to the God of 
battles for guidance and support. His servant, 
Jim, had observed this, and when some gentle¬ 
men asked him if he knew when a battle was com¬ 
ing off, he replied: “O yes, sir! The General 
is a great man for praying night and morning 
and at all times. But when I see him get up sev¬ 
eral times in the night besides, to go off and pray, 
then I know there is going to be something to 
pay; and I go straight and pack his haversack, 
because I know he will call for it in the morning.” 

Dr. J. B. Ramsay, visiting him in 1861, said: 
“Walking in prayer with God and holy obedience, 


132 The Saintly Calling . 

he reposes upon his promises and providence with 
a calm and unflinching reliance beyond any man 
whom I ever knew.” His absolute trust in the 
Ruler of all things kept him from the agitation 
and fear which weighed so heavily upon others. 
A lady related to him and living under the same 
roof for many years, said: “He was a man sui 
generis; and none who came into close contact 
with him and saw into his inner nature were 
willing to own that they had ever known such an¬ 
other.” He was of course counted eccentric, be¬ 
cause he did not walk in the same conventional 
grooves with other men. But his eccentricity 
was based upon the deepest underlying principles 
and compelled respect when it was better under¬ 
stood. He urged that every act of a man’s life 
should be religious; he spiritualized everything; 
he prayed without ceasing; he lived entirely and 
unreservedly to God’s glory. 

He said: “Nothing earthly can mar my hap¬ 
piness. I know that heaven is in store for me, 
and I should rejoice in the prospect of going there 
to-morrow. Understand me; I am not sick; I am 


Thomas J. Jackson . 


133 


not sad. God has greatly blessed me, and I have 
as much to love here as any man, and life is very 
bright to me. But still I am ready to leave it any 
day, without trepidation or regret, for that 
heaven which I know awaits me through the 
mercy of my Heavenly Father. And I would 
not agree to the slightest diminution of one shade 
of my glory there—no, not for all the fame which 
I have acquired or shall ever win in this world.’’ 

After his fatal wound at Chancellorsville, a 
friend said to him, with deep feeling: “O, Gen¬ 
eral, what a calamity.” But he, with his accus¬ 
tomed politeness, first thanked him for his sym¬ 
pathy, and then replied: “You see me severely 
wounded, but not depressed, not unhappy. I be¬ 
lieve it has been done according to God’s holy 
will, and I acquiesce entirely in it. You may 
think it strange, but you never saw me more per¬ 
fectly contented than I am to-day, for I am sure 
that my Heavenly Father designs this affliction 
for my good. I am perfectly satisfied that either 
in this life or in that which is to come I shall 
discover that which is now regarded as a calam- 


134 


The Saintly Calling . 


ity to be a blessing. I can wait until God in His 
own time shall make known to me the object he 
has in thus afflicting me. But why should I not 
rather rejoice in it as a blessing, and not look 
upon it as a calamity at all? If it were in my 
power to replace my arm, I would not dare to do 
it unless I could know it was the will of my 
Father.” His last words were: “Let us cross 
over the river and rest under the shade of the 
trees.” 

He is indeed at rest in the paradise above with 
Him whom his soul so deeply loved; and it be¬ 
hooves us to take pattern by his bright example. 
Why should not the same unwavering trust be 
ours, the same continuous trust in Providence, the 
same uncompromising devotion to duty? We, 
too, are called to be saints—that is, to rejoice 
evermore, in everything give thanks, and pray 
without ceasing. Alas! many are called, but few 
are chosen; few elect themselves to this highest 
of all vocations. 


ALFRED COO KM AN. 


Fear Him, ye saints, and you will then 
Have nothing else to fear; 

Make you His service your delight, 

He ’ll make your wants His care. 


136 





ALFRED COOKMAN. 


Born at Columbia, Pa., January 4, 1828, of 
parents, both of whom were remarkable, alike in 
piety and natural ability, and consecrated from 
his birth to the work of the ministry, in which 
his father was so illustrious, it would seem in¬ 
deed, as his biographer says, that “Alfred Cook- 
man was endowed from a child with a genius for 
religion.” His faculty for supernatural things 
was as marked as that of others for science or 
poetry or mechanics. He was a spiritual seer, an 
interpreter of the truths of God, divinely anointed 
to lead men on to heights beyond ordinary at¬ 
tainment. Those who knew him most intimately 
give their testimonies most readily to the rare 
beauty of his character, the impressive Christli- 
ness of his daily walk. Bishop Foster declared 
that above every man of his acquaintance Cook- 
man rose superior for the sacredness of his entire 
life, that he belonged to the highest royalty of 
137 


138 The Saintly Calling . 

earth, the seraphic, to the race of Fletcher and of 
Payson. Bishop Simpson, after a close acquaint¬ 
ance of many years, bore witness: “I never heard 
one word or saw the manifestation of any spirit 
inconsistent with the highest forms of Christian 
life.” His biographer, Dr. Ridgaway, another 
intimate friend, says: “He lived and died an ex¬ 
ample of the reality and power of Christian 
purity—one of the most beautiful specimens of a 
natural, simple, yet divinely spiritual manhood 
which it has fallen to this or any age to possess, 
and as such he takes his position among the de¬ 
parted worthies of the Christian Church.” 

He feared God from his earliest years, and at 
seven had special religious exercises. But it was 
not until he was ten that, at a protracted-meet¬ 
ing, there was a clear and thorough conversion. 
He united at once with the Church, established a 
prayer-meeting for boys of his own age, began to 
attend camp-meeting, and soon threw himself 
with the utmost ardor into various forms of 
Christian work. Even at this time it was “all for 
God.” At sixteen he lead a class-meeting, at sev- 


Alfred Cookman . 


139 


enteen became a sort of city missionary and 
preached his first sermon, at eighteen was li¬ 
censed to preach and joined the itinerant minis¬ 
terial ranks. 

While preaching on the Attleboro Circuit, be¬ 
fore he was twenty, through the influence of 
Bishop Hamline, he made a more intelligent, 
specific, and carefully complete surrender than 
had before been possible, thus inaugurating a new 
religious epoch and entering on the blessed rest 
of a decidedly higher life. The new experience 
of greater purity was very sweet and promised 
great things, but alas! in a few weeks he went to 
Conference, and there, as he says, allowed him¬ 
self to drift into the spirit of the hour, a spirit of 
foolish joking and hilarious story-telling which 
grieved the Spirit and brought a cloud over his 
communion. For some unexplained reason— 
lack of proper teaching, probably—this injury 
thus received hampered him for more than nine 
years. It was not until 1856, July 16, that he 
entered into a new covenant with God, by which 
all doubtful indulgences—including tobacco, 


140 The Saintly Calling. 

from which after this he totally abstained—were 
cast away, and with fuller light than ever before 
a completer consecration was made. Implicit 
faith and humble confession joined with the total 
surrender brought him into a wealthy place, from 
which after this he did not consciously depart. 
From this time on full salvation, or “heart pur¬ 
ity,” as he liked to term it, was his distinctive 
theme and his abiding joy. Wherever he went 
as a pastor he established special meetings for the 
higher Christian life and on a multitude of camp¬ 
grounds was its flaming advocate. 

We do not find, however, that he intermitted 
his endeavors after greater nearness to Christ. 
In 1862 his testimony was: “I have been able to 
say for years I am saved through the blood of 
Jesus Christ. I have no doubt of my personal 
purity, but I want, to be filled with the Spirit. I 
am hungering and thirsting after righteousness, 
and God is filling me. I have been too anxious 
for all the fullness at once; but I am willing to be 
filled as God may determine. I am climbing up. 
I don’t leave my present standpoint, but I am 
climbing up, and wish to do so for ever and ever.” 


Alfred Cookman. 


141 

Again he said: “It is the especial desire of my 
heart that I may be filled with God. I am pant¬ 
ing for more of God, more of His truth, more 
of His holiness, more of His power; I want the 
fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of peace.” 
At a later date, 1871, shortly before his death, 
he got yet clearer revelations as to the path of 
perfection, and said: “I used to maintain that 
the blood was sufficient, but I am coming to know 
that tribulation brings us to the blood that 
cleanseth. I have known for many years what 
it is to be washed in the blood of the Lamb; now 
I understand the full meaning of that verse, 
‘These are they which came out of great tribula¬ 
tion/ perfect or purified through suffering.” 
And not far from the same time he wrote: 
“Cleansed from sin, let us go on, concerned to 
be without wrinkle or any such thing. After the 
washing or purifying there are other processes 
used by the power or Spirit of God in smoothing 
and adorning and perfecting our characters. We 
want to be presented faultless before the throne 
of God with exceeding great joy.” 


142 


The Saintly Calling . 


He certainly impressed all who came in con¬ 
tact with him for years that he was ever intent 
—increasingly so as time wore on—upon one ob¬ 
ject, the greatest likeness to Jesus. He had un¬ 
interrupted communion with God. One large se¬ 
cret of his success as a pastor was his evident de¬ 
sire to do the people good. No term could so ade¬ 
quately sum up the assemblage of his graces, or so 
fitly characterize him, as saintliness. One-tenth of 
his income was dedicated to strictly religious uses. 
He had a firm faith in the care of divine Provi¬ 
dence. A young man in Newark, speaking highly 
of his goodness after his death, was asked if he 
had often heard him preach. “No,” said he, “I 
have never heard him preach, but I have watched 
him as he was walking along the street.” 

He said to a friend once on the street, some 
years before his departure: “I want to go to 
heaven: I would like to be off if it were God’s 
will: not that I am tired of life, or do not feel I 
have much to live for; but O to be with Jesus 
is much more desirable!” He went to heaven 
November 13, 1871, at the age of forty-three, a 


Alfred Cookman. 


H3 


good deal sooner than seemed to be at all neces¬ 
sary. He did not know how to rest. Instead of 
letting up the strain a little in the summer, when 
his Churches gave him a vacation for that specific 
purpose, he applied himself with increased dili¬ 
gence to substantially the same kind of work. 
For twenty years or more he went from camp¬ 
meeting to camp-meeting throughout the hot 
months, preaching frequently and laboring very 
arduously. On these rounds he would toil till 
voice was gone and sleep was impossible, some¬ 
times remaining up the whole night, exhorting, 
instructing, praying. His friends remonstrated 
in vain. He enjoyed it, and did not for a while 
realize his danger. When the inevitable conse¬ 
quences began to stare him in the face, in the pre¬ 
mature decay of his vital force, it was too late to 
change his habits, and he probably deemed him¬ 
self justified in thus wearing himself out in a 
way so productive of large usefulness. 

His last camp-meeting sermon, preached at 
Ocean Grove, was on the text, “Be filled with the 
Spirit.” In this he felt was compacted the one 


144 


The Saintly Calling. 


great want of the Christian Church. The last 
text in his own pulpit, a little later, October 22d, 
was, “We all do fade as a leaf.” Acute inflamma¬ 
tory rheumatism hurried him away in less than a 
month. The last weeks were a wonderful com¬ 
pound of keenest physical agony and highest spir¬ 
itual joy. Some of the most precious experiences 
of his life were condensed into these days. With 
every sharp, excruciating pain he felt that Jesus 
pressed him even more closely to His great heart 
of love and let him realize the power of His 
divine sympathy and tenderness. He counted 
himself immensely the gainer from his suffer¬ 
ings, blessed with new views of Christ’s pres¬ 
ence and the cleansing blood, and fully persuaded 
that the present afflictions were working for him 
a far more exceeding weight of glory. He said: 
“My Church is very dear to me; my wife and 
children are very precious; my friends are dear 
to me; but the sweet will of God I love better 
than all else; I have no choice to live or die. God 
has some design in this sickness. Jesus is very 
precious. If I could have life on earth by the lift- 


Alfred Cookman . 


H5 


ing of my hand, I would not. If Jesus should ask 
me would I live or die, I would answer, ‘I refer it 
back to Thee.’ The great concern on my mind 
has been to know exactly what is the will or de¬ 
sign of my Heavenly Father in this dispensation. 
It has wonderfully increased my interest in and 
sympathy for suffering humanity. It has real¬ 
ized to me the power and preciousness of many 
parts of Scripture. It has satisfied me of the in¬ 
dependent action of the soul, for when my whole 
lower nature seemed to be quivering and quailing 
through excruciating pain, my higher being not 
only trusted but triumphed in the God of my sal¬ 
vation. The best hours of my illness were when 
the fierce fires of suffering were kindling and 
scorching all around me. It has convinced me 
that full salvation is the only preparation for the 
ten thousand contingencies that belong to a mor¬ 
tal career.” 

Thus he passed to his great reward, leaving 
behind him an immortal name, and greeted by the 
multitudes he had helped to holier living. He 
kept himself unspotted from the world, and lived 


10 


146 


The Saintly Calling . 


to the will of God, finding in this, as he explicitly 
said, the secret of spiritual power. He was, in 
the language of Morley Punshon, “a blameless 
and beautiful character, whose spirit exhaled so 
sweet a fragrance that the perfume lingers with 
us yet, and who went home like a plumed war¬ 
rior, for whom the everlasting doors were lifted, 
as he was stricken into victory in his prime, and 
who had nothing to do at the last moment but 
mount into the chariot of Israel and go ‘sweeping 
through the gates, washed in the blood pf the 
Lamb/ ” 


I have no answer, for myself or thee, 

Save that I learned beside my mothers knee: 

“ All is of God that is or is to be, 

And God is good.” Let this suffice us still, 

Resting in childlike trust upon His will 

Who moves to His great ends unthwarted by the ill. 








» 


« 



















CHARLES G. FINNEY. 






















In vain they smite me. Men but do 
What God permits with different view. 
To outward sight they hold the rod, 
But faith proclaims it all of God. 

148 



CHARLES G. FINNEY. 


Among the greatest revivalists of America 
Charles Grandison Finney holds a foremost 
place. He did not number his converts, but in a 
ministry of more than fifty years it is safe to say 
that hundreds of thousands turned to the Lord 
in response to his appeals. There was a long 
period when the effect of his words on individ¬ 
uals and on masses, wherever he went, seemed 
little less than miraculous. As a theologian, a 
leader of thought, an instructor, he also was con¬ 
spicuous and extremely useful. But our purpose 
here is simply to note some striking phases of his 
religious experience, that we may have the bene¬ 
fit of his testimony as to the saintly calling. 

He was born in Warren, Conn., August 29, 
1792, and died at Oberlin, Ohio, August 16, 
1875. His parents, who removed to Western 
New York when he was an infant, were neither 
of them professors of religion, and up to his 
149 


150 The Saintly Calling . 

twenty-sixth year, at which time he began to 
study law, he had never enjoyed any religious 
privileges or lived in a praying community. He 
had been brought up mostly in the woods, and 
was almost as ignorant of religion, he says, as a 
heathen. In connection with his law studies he 
became interested in the Bible, to which his at¬ 
tention was called for the first time, and he also 
came at this period for the first time under the 
influence of an educated minister. The Holy 
Spirit got hold of him, and when twenty-nine 
years old he had a very remarkable conversion. 
He immediately went to work for Jesus with im¬ 
mense enthusiasm, having no heart for anything 
else, and, forsaking the law, prepared by private 
study for the ministry, to which he felt himself 
strongly called. From the very beginning the 
most startling results attended his word, and 
widespread revivals broke out. In March, 1824, 
he was licensed to preach by the Presbytery, and 
for the next eleven years he was abundant in 
labors as an evangelist, chiefly in the cities of 
New York State. I11 1835 he took hold of the 
new institution at Oberlin, and from that time 


Charles G. Finney . 151 

till his decease divided his energies between the 
college and widely extended evangelistic vic¬ 
tories on both sides of the Atlantic. 

During the early months of 1837, while at 
work in New York City, “the Lord was pleased/’ 
he says, “to visit my soul with a great refresh¬ 
ing. After a season of great searching of heart 
He brought me, as He has often done, into a 
large place, and gave me much of that divine 
sweetness of which President Edwards speaks 
as attained in his own experience.” He explains 
that he had frequently before this become greatly 
dissatisfied with his want of stability in faith and 
love, his weakness in the presence of temptation, 
and the difficulty that he found in retaining that 
communion with God, that hold upon the divine 
strength, which would enable him efficiently to 
promote revivals of religion. He began to see 
clearly that there was “an altogether higher and 
more stable form of Christian life attainable,” 
that it was the privilege of all Christians to live 
without known sin or condemnation, and to have 
unbroken peace. 


152 


The Saintly Calling . 


A still greater baptism came upon him near 
the close of 1843, while he was conducting a re¬ 
vival in Boston. The Lord gave his soul at this 
time, he says, “a very thorough overhauling.” 
His mind became exceedingly exercised on the 
question of personal holiness. He gave himself 
to a great deal of prayer, and spent the days 
throughout the winter in little else than search¬ 
ing the Scriptures, much of which seemed new 
to him, ablaze with light and life. He had a 
great struggle to consecrate himself to God in 
a higher sense than he had ever before conceived 
obligatory or possible. His wife was in very 
feeble health, and he found difficulty in giving 
her up unqualifiedly to the will of God. For a 
long time he was unable to do it. But victory 
finally came. The infinitely blessed and perfect 
will of God was welcomed in all its length and 
breadth as never before, followed by a complete 
resting in that will, an absolute satisfaction with 
it, whatever it might bring, such as he had not 
known. “My mind settled into a perfect still¬ 
ness. My confidence in God was perfect, my ac- 


Charles G. Finney . 


*53 


ceptance of His will was perfect, and my mind 
was as calm as heaven/’ His desires seemed all 
met. Where before prayer had been fervent and 
protracted for a long period, now he could only 
say, “Thy will be done.” He had such strong 
faith that God would accomplish all His perfect 
will that he could not be anxious about anything, 
nor could he hardly ask for anything; his soul was 
entirely satisfied. He says: “The Lord lifted me 
above anything that I had experienced before, and 
taught me so much of the meaning of the Bible, 
of Christ’s relations and power and willingness, 
that I often found myself saying to Him, I had 
not known or conceived that any such thing was 
true.” “At times I could not realize that I had 
ever before been truly in communion with God.” 
“Since then I have never had those great strug¬ 
gles and long-protracted seasons of agonizing 
prayer that I had often experienced. It is quite 
another thing to prevail with God from what it 
was before. I can come to God with more calm¬ 
ness because with more perfect confidence. He 
enables me now to rest in Him, and let every- 


i54 


The Saintly Calling . 


thing sink into His perfect will. I have felt since 
then a religious freedom, a religious buoyancy 
and delight in God and in His Word, a steadiness 
of faith, a Christian liberty and overflowing love, 
that I had only experienced occasionally before. 
My bondage seemed to be at that time entirely 
broken; and since then I have had the freedom of 
a child with a loving parent. I can find God 
within me in such a sense that I can rest upon 
Him and be quiet, lay my heart in His hand, and 
nestle down in His perfect will, and have no care¬ 
fulness or anxiety.” 

A change came over his preaching. It took 
more the direction of full salvation, of which his 
mind was now full. But he soon found, he says, 
that he preached over the heads of the majority 
of the people. They did not understand him. 
Some were wonderfully blessed and made mar¬ 
velous progress in the divine life, but as a gen¬ 
eral thing the testimony that he bore was unin¬ 
telligible to the mass of professors of religion and 
found no sympathy at their hands. Writing at 
the close of his life, he says: “I have never 


\ 


Charles G . Finney . 


155 


found that more than a very few people appre¬ 
ciated and received those views of God and Christ 
and the fullness of His free salvation upon which 
my own soul still delights to feed. In every place 
where I have preached for many years I have 
found the Churches in so low a state as to be 
utterly incapable of understanding and appreciat¬ 
ing what I regard as the most precious truths of 
the whole Gospel. They are ignorant of the 
power of these truths. It is only now and then 
that I find it really profitable to the people of 
God to pour out to them the fullness that my own 
soul sees in Christ.” 

One other experience deserves mention. A 
few years after the great refreshing of 1843, his 
beloved wife died, and though he felt no re¬ 
sistance whatever to the will of God, as he 
thought, he fell into great sorrow that almost 
overwhelmed him. But soon the Lord showed 
him that if he really loved her, not for himself, 
but for her own sake, and for God’s sake, her 
happiness with the Lord would make him rejoice 
in her joy instead of mourning so selfishly. This 


156 The Saintly Calling . 

produced an instantaneous change in his whole 
state of mind. From that moment sorrow on ac¬ 
count of his loss was gone forever. His faith 
became so strong and his mind so enlightened 
that he seemed able to enter into the very state 
of mind in which she was in heaven, and to com¬ 
mune with her there, to participate in the pro¬ 
found unbroken rest in the perfect will of God, 
the union with His will, which she was experienc¬ 
ing. “I could see that this was heaven, and I 
experienced it in my own soul. I have never to 
this day lost the blessing of these views. They 
frequently recur to me as the very state of mind 
in which the inhabitants of heaven are, and I can 
see why they are in such a state of blessedness.” 

Comment is hardly necessary. We perceive 
from all this very plainly what heavenly-minded- 
ness is, and that we may have it here. We see 
also that a man may be extremely useful in the 
salvation of souls without it, the two things be¬ 
ing so far distinct as to have little real connec¬ 
tion. In preaching to sinners one must deal 
mainly with first principles, and he who has 


Charles G. Finney . 


157 


passed very far beyond this can not, perhaps, as 
a rule take so absorbing an interest in them as 
one who is not so much advanced. It is evident, 
also, that long seasons of agonizing prayer are 
not a sign of the utmost nearness to God, but just 
the contrary. And while deep grief for the death 
of friends is natural, supernatural grace, when 
sufficiently full, sweeps it away, and transfers us 
to the divine point of view, which is very differ¬ 
ent from that of man. 


Whatsoe’er our lot may be 

Calmly in this thought we ’ll rest; 
Could we see as Thou dost see 
We should choose it as the best. 


I take Thy hand and fears grow still, 
Behold Thy face and doubts remove; 
Who would not yield his wavering will 
To perfect truth and boundless love ? 



Grow old along with me! 

The best is yet to be, 

The last of life for which the first was made: 

Our times are in his hand 
Who saith, “ A whole I planned, 

Youth shows but half: trust God; see all, nor be afraid. 

Then welcome each rebuff 

That turns earth’s smoothness rough, 

Bach sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go! 

Be our joys three-parts pain! 

Strive and hold cheap the strain; 

Bearn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the 
throe! 

Fool! All that is, at all, 

Lasts ever, past recall; 

Earth changes, but Thy soul and God stand sure: 

What entered into Thee, 

That was, is, and shall be : 

Time’s wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay 
endure. 


158 


JOHN ELLISON VASSAR. 


There is no human being 
With so wholly dark a lot, 

But the heart by turning the picture 
May find some sunny spot. 

160 


/ 


JOHN ELLISON VASSAR. 


This man was called, by one well qualified 
to speak, “the most laborious and the most use¬ 
ful layman of his age.” Another high authority, 
Dr. A. J. Gordon, of Boston, refers to him as 
“not a whit behind the greatest soul-winners in 
the Christian Church of the past centuries, either 
in ardent zeal, or singleness of consecration, or 
exalted piety,” “the most powerful illustration 
which I have ever witnessed of utter unreserved 
consecration to God.” “I never received such 
quickening and inspiration from any living per¬ 
son;” “a life so absolutely given up to God that 
I believe it would have been literally impossible to 
have given any more; communion with God so 
unbroken that it may justly be said that the lan¬ 
guage of earth, its chatter, its frivolity, was a 
strange speech to him, while the language of 
heaven was his true mother tongue. Still 
others testified that “he was the most perfect ex- 
ii x6i 


162 


The Saintly Calling . 


emplifier of Christ I ever knew;” “one of God's 
own noblemen;” “I never met a man who pos¬ 
sessed such a transcendent consciousness of 
divine things;” “I have known many a good man 
after the flesh, but never another such as he;” 
“I never met his like in all the varied labors of' 
the saint;” “after an experience of twenty years, 
I am free to say that I never knew a man who 
prayed so much, who lived so constantly in the 
sunshine of the Savior’s presence; if ever a man 
lived Christ, it was he.” 

He was far from being a great man in the 
ordinary sense of that term. His education was 
limited, his personal presence was not command¬ 
ing, in intellectual grasp he was by no means 
superior to very many, but in those spiritual 
characteristics which make a man a prince with 
God, he had very few equals. He started in as 
a humble colporteur, he grew to be a master in 
Israel. Born in Poughkeepsie, N. Y., January 
13, 1813, of parents who walked with God, he 
spent a Godless, prayerless, passionate, profane 
youth until he was twenty-eight years old. Then 


John Ellison Vassar. 163 

he had a wonderful conversion, resulting in an 
assurance of sonship so clear that nothing after¬ 
wards darkened it for an hour. There was never 
anything halfway about him. Religion became 
to him at once the most real thing in the uni¬ 
verse, and he speedily took hold in earnest of the 
work of the Lord in the Baptist Church at 
Poughkeepsie, which he joined April 3, 1842. 
But God had very great things for him to do, 
and a necessary part of the preparation was se¬ 
vere affliction. Between September, 1847, an d 
November, 1849, his happy household, a beloved 
wife and two fine sons, was swept away by death. 
He nobly stood the test, and unselfishly rejoiced 
in the triumph of his dear companion, praising 
God that her suffering and sorrow were over. 
It was the time when he wholly cut loose from 
the world. 

He had been up to this date employed in the 
great Vassar brewery, owned by his cousins, but 
in 1850, questioning the rightfulness of such an 
occupation, he severed his connection with it and 
entered the service of the American Tract So- 


164 The Saintly Calling . 

ciety. From this time till his discharge from 
earthly labors, December 6, 1878, he was closely 
occupied, in this and similar lines, for the pro¬ 
motion of the kingdom of God. He did his 
greatest work and exhibited his most remarkable 
power in personal conversation with the uncon¬ 
verted. His precise methods, doubtless, could 
not be adopted by all, but they are worthy of the 
most careful study. 

His attack on the citadel of the soul was al¬ 
ways direct, skillful, persistent, and usually suc¬ 
cessful. Two texts of Scripture, more than any 
others, depict him: “Instant in season, out of 
season,” and “The zeal of thine house hath eaten 
me up.” The latter was the word chosen by his 
pastor to preface the address at his funeral. “If 
lie had a coat of arms,” said this speaker, “the 
proper device for it would have been a burning 
heart.” He was the very incarnation of fervor 
and red-hot enthusiasm for Christ. He carried 
the flame and flavor of his religion with him 
wherever he went. He was all on fire with love 
for Jesus and his fellow-men. Says a friend, “I 


John Ellison Vassar. 165 

never saw one on whose tongue the precious 
name of Jesus dwelt so much, it was the keynote 
of every utterance, the mainspring of all toil.” 
The all-absorbing, overmastering passion of his 
soul was love to God and the perishing around 
him. He pressed religion everywhere, and 
showed himself no respecter of persons, places, or 
occasions. There was no man of his day, or per¬ 
haps of any day, who equaled him in free, ready, 
easy approach to and entrance into the hearts of 
men with personal religious messages. His diary 
shows that at one time, when a colporteur, he 
conversed in three months with over 3,000 per¬ 
sons on the subject of personal religion; forty 
families a day were frequently visited. 

Wherever he went, from town to town, and 
from Church to Church, revivals started up with 
immense power. Drowsy Christians awoke, for¬ 
mal, frozen professors thawed out, and hundreds 
of careless sinners bowed in penitence at the feet 
of the Savior. He made his mark for eternity 
upon thousands of men in the army during the 
Civil War, where he did more good than dozens 


166 The Saintly Calling . 

of ordinary chaplains. He represented the 
yearning heart of Christ, and seemed to have al¬ 
most magical power over those he met. Each 
lost soul appeared to be infinitely dear to him, 
and he worked for it as though his very life de¬ 
pended on the issue. He pursued the glory of 
God in the salvation of souls with all the ardor 
and enthusiasm with which a merchant pursues 
a fortune or a politician an office. His absorp¬ 
tion in his labor was so intense that he found a 
most abiding and abounding joy in it. The 
bread of service was sweeter to him than the 
bread of the table, and the meat of doing the 
Master’s will was far better than the meat of 
bodily food. He seemed often entirely insensi¬ 
ble to every earthly thing in his consuming de¬ 
sire to get those saved for whom he was work¬ 
ing. Everything that earth had to offer in the 
way of riches or reputation, comfort or personal 
gratification, possessed not the slightest attrac¬ 
tion for him, was but the dust in the balance 
compared with heavenly things. He was so in¬ 
different to this world that he seemed absolutely 


John Ellison Vassar. 167 

naturalized as a citizen of heaven, living here for 
the sole object of getting people there, introduc¬ 
ing them to the kingdom of God. 

Of course he was considered beside himself 
by lukewarm, easy-going, half-hearted disciples. 
The average Christian life was made to look very 
like a hollow mockery beside a piety like his, al¬ 
ways charged to the highest pitch. His riches 
convicted most others of poverty. His absolute 
consecration necessarily conveyed a startling re¬ 
buke to worldly, self-indulgent Christianity, and 
disturbance was inevitably produced. He was 
not comprehended, could not be, by the formalist. 
The “reproach of Christ” rested richly upon him, 
but he took it joyfully. Under the sorest provo¬ 
cations he possessed his soul in perfect peace. 
Nor was he at all censorious, or out of patience 
with those living on a lower plane. He never 
glorified himself; it was always Christ. 

In fact, unflinching loyalty to the Lord Jesus, 
based on an adoring love, was the mainspring of 
all he was and all he did. This love was not a 
passing fancy or a mere sentiment; it was an 


168 The Saintly Calling . 

enduring principle, an abiding motive which for¬ 
tified him against any other feeling, and was his 
most powerful incentive to action. And the next 
most prominent feature of his life was his habit¬ 
ual and almost unbroken intercourse with God in 
prayer. His first conscious breath in the morn¬ 
ing was prayer; so was the last at night. He 
absolutely prayed day and night, prayed about 
everything, prayed for almost everybody, and 
with almost everybody he met, prayed when he 
went out and when he came in, prayed before 
every religious service, and prayed all the way 
through it. If he had a moment to spare while 
waiting for dinner he would snatch refreshment 
from his Bible and then drop upon his knees for 
a few words with the great Life and Lover of his 
soul. He esteemed prayer a most blessed privi¬ 
lege and a deep delight, not a drudgery, as it is 
with most. He had mighty faith, and an un¬ 
wavering trust. His acquaintance with the Bible 
was of the most intimate character. His per¬ 
sistency of purpose, his wise tact, his tender sym¬ 
pathy, his childlike simplicity, his deep humility, 


John Ellison Vassar. 169 

were all most marked. In spite of the great suc¬ 
cess of his labors he retained an unmagnified self¬ 
estimate. He liked to call himself “the Shep¬ 
herd’s dog/’ and “legs for Bunyan and Baxter.” 
He never paraded his personal piety, nor trum¬ 
peted his attainments in the Christian life. Dr. 
Stone says: “I once asked him what he thought 
of the doctrine of perfect sanctification in this 
life. His answer was, ‘I do not doubt we may 
have high experiences of Christ’s love, and great 
degrees of submission and joy, but the difficulty 
is to keep there.’ ” There was much wisdom and 
spiritual insight in these words. He had a most 
broad and catholic spirit. Although denomina¬ 
tionally a Baptist, he labored for no particular 
sect, went with equal acceptance and interest 
among all Churches holding the evangelical faith, 
and profoundly loved them all. Wherever his 
name was known it was the synonym for godli¬ 
ness. He was the marvel of his age, “a Moody 
and Sankey combined,” for he was a very sweet 
singer as well as an indefatigable evangelist. 
How he did pull sinners out of the fire! You 


170 


The Saintly Calling. 


could not meet him on the street, even for five 
minutes, without seeing what was the great ab¬ 
sorbing interest of his soul. The beauty of holi¬ 
ness, the blessedness of service, the grandeur of 
self-sacrifice—these were the outstanding lessons 
of his life. “Hallelujah” was the last word on 
his lips as he passed on into the next state of be¬ 
ing. His whole life, after he was thirty-seven, 
seems to have been pitched, without much varia¬ 
tion, on this same high key. So far as we can 
trace it, the various stages of growth which mark 
most Christians did not appear with any distinct¬ 
ness in his experience. It looks as though he was 
born with almost full stature, and served God 
with the energy of an undivided heart well-nigh 
from the very start, although, of course, he had 
much to learn. Christians of this glorious type, 
companions of the order of full salvation, knights 
of the Holy Ghost, carrying with them perpet¬ 
ually the savor of a holy life and the atmosphere 
of heaven—how rare, how much needed in the 
Church, how dear to God! Will not the reader 
resolve, so far as in him lies, to add one to the 
number ? 


MISS FRANCES RIDLEY HA VER- 

GAL. 


Be like a bird that, halting in her flight, 

Awhile on boughs too slight, 

Feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, 
Knowing that she hath wings. 


172 


MISS FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL. 


What more likely to draw out ardent long¬ 
ings for greater likeness to Christ than increased 
acquaintance with Miss Havergal who was clearly 
one of God’s chosen saints? This, no one who has 
read her own letters and other writings, as well 
as the memoir by her sister, will be disposed to 
doubt. Her religious experience divides itself 
naturally into two periods, the first of which, up 
to December 2, 1873, need not detain us much, 
for it is of the common kind, marked by the usual 
doubts and struggles that hamper the progress of 
so many of God’s children. From earliest years 
she longed to be a Christian, but received little 
aid. When about fourteen, in a revival at school, 
she took a forward step and had a sort of con¬ 
version, but it was far from clear or satisfactory 
to her aspiring soul, which had very high stand¬ 
ards. Still from about this time she assumed 
Christian duties and took a stand for Jesus. July 
173 


174 


The Saintly Calling. 


17, 1854, she was confirmed (her father being 
a clergyman in the Church of England), and 
found a blessing in it. 

She now went on from year to year with a 
good many ups and downs, her faith sometimes 
much strengthened, sometimes much wavering, 
but with a growing beauty in her daily life, and 
considerable success from time to time in soul¬ 
winning, as well as large blessings on her liter¬ 
ary labors. Still the unreserved surrender was 
not made, and, in consequence, permanent peace 
was not found. She remained in more or less 
bondage to the opinions of worldly friends. 
Pride and selfishness at times gave her sore bat¬ 
tles and keen regrets. She deeply grieved when 
she yielded to temptation, and strongly desired to 
rise to a higher level of Christian life, but she 
seemed unable to grasp the great truths in this 
direction, which were faithfully pointed out to 
her. 

In the latter part of November, 1873, Miss 
Havergal received a penny tract, with the title, 
“All for Jesus,” which met the needs of her soul. 


Miss Frances Ridley Haver gal. 175 

It set forth a fullness of Christian love and life, 
a uniform brightness and continuous enjoyment 
of God, much beyond what she had attained. She 
wrote to the author, and, in response to her let¬ 
ter, he said a few words on the power of Jesus 
to keep those who abide in Him from falling, and 
on the continually present power of his blood to 
save, according to 1 John i, 7, “The blood of 
Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. ,, 
Joyfully she replied, “I see it all, and I have the 
blessing.” 

This surely was simple, but it made a won¬ 
drous change. In her own words, “It lifted her 
whole soul into sunshine, of which all she had 
previously experienced was but as pale and pass¬ 
ing April gleams compared with the fullness of 
summer glory.” Henceforth her peace and joy 
flowed onwards, deepening and widening under 
the teaching of the Holy Ghost. Her surrender 
was never retracted, but it was constantly re¬ 
newed and revised in the continual endeavor to 
keep the consecration fully up to the ever-increas¬ 
ing light. Thus there was a very blessed and 


176 


The Saintly Calling . 


almost uninterrupted progress, as she pressed 
toward the mark. 

In the few years that followed before she 
passed to heaven (June 3, 1879) she was able 
nearly always to sound very clear high notes of 
triumph to the honor of her Lord. We append 
a few expressions from her letters: “I have not 
a fear or a doubt or a care or a shadow of a 
shadow upon the sunshine of my heart. Every 
day brings some quite new cause for praise.” 
“My whole heart says, ‘Whom have I in heaven 
but Thee? And there is none upon earth that I 
desire beside Thee.’ ” “I never feel eager even for 
usefulness now; it is happier to leave it all to 
Him, and I always pray, Use me, Lord, or not 
use me, just as thou wilt.” “Life is now what I 
never dreamed life on earth could be, though I 
knew much of peace and joy in believing before.” 
“The blessing not only lasts, but increases. It is 
even having a great effect upon my health; for 
all touch of worry, care, anxiety, and fidget about 
anything earthly or heavenly is all gone. Jesus 
takes it all, and the rest of faith is more perfect 


Miss Frances Ridley Haver gal. 177 

and uninterrupted than I imagined it possible for 
any one of my nervous, high-strung temperament 
to enjoy.” “Now, 'Thy will be done’ is not a 
sigh, but only a song.” “It is such a glorious life, 
this life of utter surrender, continual cleansing, 
absolute trust and implicit obedience.” “The 
really leaving everything to Him is so inexpressi¬ 
bly sweet, and surely he does arrange so much 
better than we could for ourselves when we leave 
it all to Him.” “Is it not delicious to know that 
he chooses every bit of our work, and orders 
every moment of our waiting? What a Master 
we have.” “ 'Great is thy faithfulness’ shines out 
upon the past, and 'I will fear no evil’ upon the 
future.” “There seems no room for the word 
'disappointment’ in the happy life of entire trust 
in Jesus and satisfaction with his perfect and 
glorious will.” 

Miss Havergal was called to pass through 
very severe trials, bereavements, heavy losses by 
fires and failures of publishing-houses, and in¬ 
tense, protracted, painful illnesses. Her triumph 
in these things was unquestionable. She was 


12 


178 The Saintly Calling. 

brought to the borders of the grave by a long lin¬ 
gering fever, but kept in perfect peace. She says, 
“I am so very happy that it has really seemed 
worth being prayed back from the very gates of 
heaven if I may but tell of His faithfulness. Not 
one good thing hath failed. ,, “He has granted 
me fully to rejoice in His will. I am not con¬ 
scious of even a wish crossing it. He giveth 
songs in the night. I feel as if it had intensified 
my trust; I do trust Him utterly and feel as if 
I could not help trusting Him.” “I have not one 
regret or quiver of longing for anything but what 
He appoints. He hath done all things well. How 
sure we are of that.” “I am so very glad He did 
not answer prayer for my recovery all those eight 
months of illness. Why, I should have missed all 
sorts of blessing and precious teaching if He 
had.” 

She was so eager to advance that the search¬ 
ing processes were welcomed. She did not 
shrink from painful discoveries of evil, because 
she so greatly wanted to have the unknown 
depths cleansed as well as what came more read- 


Miss Frances Ridley Haver gal. 179 

ily to the surface. And God carried on his work 
within her in the usual way, by gradual disclos¬ 
ures as she was fitted to bear it. There were 
times when she felt that her watchfulness had 
not been quite perfect, that the eye of faith had 
wandered, for a moment at least, from Jesus, 
when there had been a less ready and hearty re¬ 
sponse than there should have been to some un¬ 
expected and trying requirement of the Master, 
when there was a less eager searching to know 
and pressing on to do the whole will of God than 
was possible, when through some remissness or 
rashness or half unconscious self-seeking or 
evil speaking or inward fretting, the close com¬ 
munion had been a little clouded as He with¬ 
drew the brightness of His shining, and some 
small spot or wrinkle had marred the snowy robe 
of perfect righteousness. She could not always 
feel so sure as she wished that the temptation to 
spiritual pride had not met with some slight con¬ 
sent, and so partaken a little of the nature of 
sin. Her sensitive conscience and strict self¬ 
judgment led her to set down several accusations 


180 The Saintly Calling, 

of this sort against herself in the course of her 
correspondence. She did not count her self to 
have reached perfection. She was ready to con¬ 
fess that the full continual draughts of “shadow¬ 
less communion” which she believed possible she 
did not possess; and occasionally there were 
humbling revelations of failure in fullest conse¬ 
cration. It was not till August, 1878, that God 
showed her the inconsistency of a Christian’s re¬ 
taining a large amount of superfluous jewelry 
while the heathen were perishing for the Gospel. 
And not till two or three months before her death 
did she take any decided stand or do any work 
for the cause of total abstinence. 

But it should be distinctly understood that 
very rare and very brief were the pauses in the 
triumphant onward march of her Christian char¬ 
acter. Her whole soul was wrapped up in honor¬ 
ing her beloved Lord. “I do n’t ask Him to guide 
my words, but to give me His,” she writes; and 
He did speak through her to the uplifting of mul¬ 
titudes in a very wonderful way. Her sweet 
hymns have thrilled the Church universal. She 


Miss Frances Ridley Haver gal. 181 

sang for Jesus as very few have done. She was 
a most ardent Bible student. Her prose works 
are completely saturated with Scripture. She 
committed to memory all the New Testament and 
the devotional parts of the Old. Nothing less 
than a volume of description does anything like 
justice to her beautiful life. 

In the midst of her forty-third year God took 
her to Himself. It is little to say that she did 
not fear death. Any such feeling in the face of 
her Father’s messenger would have been quite 
impossible. To be with the King was her deep¬ 
est desire. She astonished the doctor by the in¬ 
quiry, “Do you think I have a chance of going?” 
When great agony came on, she whispered, “It’s 
home the faster. God’s will is delicious. He 
makes no mistakes.” When the end was thought 
to be very near she asked, “Do you really think 
I am going to-day?” The doctor said, “Prob¬ 
ably.” And her reply was, “Beautiful, too good 
to be true.” Soon after, looking up smiling she 
said, “Splendid to be so near the gates of 
heaven.” This, and “So beautiful to go,” was 


I 82 


The Saintly Calling . 


again and again repeated. “Do speak bright, 
bright words about Jesus/’ she said; “He is so 
good to take me now. Come, Lord Jesus, come 
and fetch me.” And so, amid anguish of body, 
but with victory in her soul and glorious radiance 
upon her face, she passed up to meet in heaven 
the Master whom she had so faithfully served 
on earth. 

Surely she yet speaketh. Her trust and 
triumph may be ours. We have the very same 
Jesus, whose blood cleanseth still, and whose 
power is amply sufficient to keep. What God 
did for her He will do for us if we so desire and 
demand, laying down the inevitable price of en¬ 
tire surrender. It will be nobody’s fault but our 
own if we live at a lower level, and fail of the 
bliss that crowned her days and may well crown 


Take my love—my Lord I pour 
At Thy feet its treasure store; 
Take myself, and I will be 
Ever, only, all for Thee. 


ours. 



\ 


MRS. MARY D. JAMES. 


If thou hast something, bring thy goods! 

A fair return be thine! 

If thou art something, bring thy soul 
And interchange with mine. 

184 






MRS. MARY D. JAMES. 


That Mrs. Mary D. James was eminent for 
goodness and has rarely been surpassed for saint¬ 
liness, that she walked with God in the most em¬ 
phatic sense, all who had the privilege of her in¬ 
timate acquaintance were and are perfectly ready 
to testify. A few of such testimonies, out of 
the many that have been given, may here be 
quoted: “She is the best person I ever knew;” 
“I have often said that hers, taken for all in all, 
was the most beautiful Christian life that I ever 
witnessed“In every element of holiness she Was 
my ideal Christian;” “I thought her the most 
rounded and symmetrical Christian character, 
the most exemplary illustration of the doctrine 
of Christian holiness I ever knew;” “Her life was 
hid with Christ in God, spirituality was her nor¬ 
mal state, her soul was ever wrapped in divine 
contemplations, she had constant communion 
with God;” “In the course of forty years’ minis- 
185 


186 


The Saintly Calling. 


try, I have met with none who more fully pos¬ 
sessed the mind of Christ than Mrs. Mary D. 
James.” 

Born August 7, 1810, and clearly converted, 
after a considerable struggle, February 18, 1821, 
she had a very bright experience of the second 
blessing when only twelve years of age, giving 
herself to God at that time with an unreserved 
consecration so that in response to an appropriat¬ 
ing faith he took actual possession of her whole 
nature, and filled all her faculties with loving de¬ 
votion. It was a very complete work, so far as 
the necessarily imperfect light of the time ex¬ 
tended. But she was sufficiently well instructed 
to know that her only safety lay in a continual 
maintenance of her consecration by a continual 
deepening or renewal of it, as fuller knowledge 
pf what it comprehended was vouchsafed. This 
is evident from what she wrote at a later date: 
“I am more and more persuaded that our ad¬ 
vancement in holiness depends greatly upon the 
continual denying of self, and that in proportion 
as we crucify self and relinquish our own will, 
will the grace of God live and grow in us.” 


Mrs. Mary D. James. 187 

There seems no reason to doubt that she went 
steadily on in this way with no backward steps 
for the rest of her long life, laying on the altar 
of her Lord sixty shining years all for Jesus. 
We question if there is any other instance com¬ 
pletely parallel to this. She had many advan¬ 
tages: this marvelously early start; the training 
of a most godly and judicious mother; large nat¬ 
ural endowments, both mental and social; energy, 
courage, persistency, force; association with 
many of the most excellent of the earth; several 
avenues of wide usefulness almost constantly 
open to her; severe trials of many kinds, both 
small and great, all of which she utilized care¬ 
fully for growth in grace. 

It was not because life moved smoothly with 
her that she was so uniformly joyful and pros¬ 
pered so greatly in spiritual things; quite the con¬ 
trary. Her burdens were very heavy, her frame 
was exceptionally frail, her health scarcely ever 
good. Her feeble little body, on several occa¬ 
sions, owed its continued existence directly to the 
all-sustaining power that so wonderfully upheld 


i88 


The Saintly Calling . 


the spirit. She welcomed the severe ordeals that 
her Heavenly Father sent, as she said, “To teach 
me lessons of patience and fortitude which I had 
never learned.” Referring in her diary to a great 
uplift which resulted from a bitter tribulation, 
she writes, “Fifty days have passed since that 
blessed hour of holy privilege, and from that 
hour I date a deeper experience in the inner life 
which has made the presence of Jesus the most 
vivid reality of my existence. Most of these fifty 
days I have been suffering from severe sickness, 
but each day has been crowned with signal mer¬ 
cies, and every day has borne on its wings praises 
to God from a grateful heart.” 

She was emphatically a growing Christian 
through all the sixty years, finding no place to 
stop, but making each attainment a stepping-stone 
to something higher. Aspirations for more were 
ever joined with praises for what she had. Her 
soul “was fired with a holy ambition,” she says, 
“to have so large an inheritance that my income 
may supply all my needs and enable me to live 
quite above the world.” 


189 


Mrs . Mary D. James . 

She writes again: “I do know that I love 
God supremely, that my heart is not on earth, but 
in heaven, that my will is swallowed up in the 
will divine, and that the Most High condescends 
to own me for his child and blesses me with his 
smiles from day to day. But O, there is a full¬ 
ness which I have not yet attained to which my 
soul aspires continually.” At a later date she 
writes: “The longer I live, the more I see that 
I am nothing. The opinions of the world, its 
esteem and applause, have been diminishing in 
importance to me for years past. Now they 
seem to be of no more consequence than a puff of 
wind. My only solicitude is to please God and be 
useful in the world.” 

She was very useful. Besides the faithful per¬ 
formance of her duties as wife and mother in 
the home which she made so happy, she was an 
indefatigable worker in all kinds of meetings, 
was much blessed among children, was very ac¬ 
tive in the temperance cause, was a wonderful 
helper at camp-meetings, particularly at Ocean 
Grove, and accomplished great good with her 


190 The Saintly Calling . 

tireless pen. Besides the four books, and the 
fifty or more hymns (some of them very widely 
sung), and the multitudinous articles in papers 
and magazines, what she accomplished for Jesus 
in the way of correspondence would of itself 
make a brilliant chapter. Her biographer had 
1,500 letters before him preserved by those to 
whom they were written. She never wrote a 
letter without bearing testimony for Jesus. Even 
the most hurried note or postal card breathed 
forth something of her all-pervading piety. Re¬ 
ligion was usually her theme. It was her joy 
to seize the first opportunity after learning of any 
important event in the history of one who seemed 
to have claims upon her, to make that event the 
subject of a letter, leading the thought to the 
Divine Ruler of all things. The helping of twen¬ 
ty-five young men into the ministry was one item 
of her work for the Master. 

Her well-balanced mind kept her entirely free 
from fanaticism. She never expected results 
without the use of means, nor did she make a 
hobby of special terms. “She never professed to 


Mrs . Mary D . James . 


191 

be sinless, or holy or perfect,” declares her son 
and biographer. And one of her pastors records 
that in giving testimony for Christ it was appar¬ 
ent that her desire was to exalt her Savior and 
not herself; she was ready to take part, but was 
not overforward or obtrusive. Impulses to a par¬ 
ticular course, or to changes in her plans, were 
tested by God’s Word and Providence, and were 
only obeyed when they were shown to be in har¬ 
mony with common sense enlightened by the 
Holy Spirit. She writes: “It is wonderful how 
self-will remains concealed sometimes, and we 
think it is gone and that we are all the Lord’s, 
when suddenly something occurs to arouse the 
hidden enemy, and lo! he makes his appearance 
again, and we are surprised to find he still lives.” 
She fully understood that it is not possible until 
we are sharply tested to know precisely where 
we are. “Suffering the loss of all things, when 
realized,” she wrote, “is very different from the 
mere contemplation of such a trial.” At times 
she was obliged to confess that saying, “Thy will 
be done,” in the face of great sorrows, was 


192 


The Saintly Calling . 


harder than she had expected. “My poor heart 
had a struggle, but victory came very soon and 
the song of praise was again on my lips.” 

It is evident that hers was a very natural life 
(although drawing its strength from supernat¬ 
ural sources), going straight forward in sim¬ 
plicity and beauty to ever-increasing symmetry. 
It was not without flaw or defect or occasion for 
repentance and correction; it made no pretense or 
profession of this. But it was genuinely and 
deeply devoted to God; and when it found, on 
very rare occasions, that there had been, through 
inadvertence or ignorance, a stepping aside or a 
coming short from what was the ideal right, it 
did not through false pride of consistency or ad¬ 
herence to a mistaken theory try to cover this 
up or explain it away. The fault was frankly 
acknowledged and measures were taken to amend 
it. Thus the growth went gloriously onward. 
There was no assumption of having already at¬ 
tained. There was a constant reaching forth to 
a more and more intimate walk with the Master. 
And so her lifelong motto, “All for Jesus,” came 


Mrs. Mary D. James . 193 

to mean at the last a very different thing from 
what it did at the first. 

She was able to say as her days grew toward 
their close, with even greater positiveness than 
before: “The mainspring of all my work for 
this blessed cause and the source of my spiritual 
life is the felt reality of the indwelling presence 
of the living Christ.” “My peace is as a river. 
Not a cloud intervenes between the bright sun, 
my dear Redeemer, and my soul. Such sweet 
resting in His blessed will. Such unwavering 
trust in and constant help from Him who is my 
strength and righteousness, my wisdom, and my 
all. O, it is indeed joy unspeakable and full of 
glory.” “All anxiety is excluded both in refer¬ 
ence to my own personal concerns and those of 
my dearest ones. I am learning more and more 
to accept everything as from the hand of my lov¬ 
ing Father, looking away from second causes and 
seeing only His guiding hand.” “I have no other 
will but to do the will of God; no other desire but 
to work and speak and think for Him ; no other 
purpose or object or aim but to please him in all 
13 


194 The Saintly Calling . 

things. The thought of offending him is more 
dreadful to me than to suffer death in its most 
terrific form. To be burnt at the stake would be 
infinitely preferable to an act that would offend 
my adorable Lord, to whom I have consecrated 
all my soul and body’s powers, yes, all I know 
and all I feel, all I have and all I am.” 

On finishing her last full twelve-month, she 
said, January I, 1883: “I think of all my seven¬ 
ty-two years, this has been the happiest. I have 
found it so sweet to live and work for Jesus. It 
pays well to serve God.” Her last words were, 
“I am ready.” And thus, October 4, 1883, she 
was translated, having had witness borne to her 
from great multitudes that her daily life corre¬ 
sponded to the profession which she made. She 
learned the blessed secret of believing God and 
trusting him completely. No shadow of doubt 
rested on her full assurance that all things with¬ 
out exception, under the special control of One 
who perfectly loved her, were constantly work¬ 
ing out her good. She experienced a very great 
salvation whose richness and sweetness surpassed 


Mrs . Mary D. James. 195 

all powers of language to describe. The infinite 
resources of divine love and life were open to her 
and were laid hold of by simple faith to her ex¬ 
ceeding great comfort. But certainly they are 
for all, equally for all, who sufficiently prize their 
preciousness to take the steps needful to gain 
them. That it pays to do so, pays a million-fold, 
seems to the writer absolutely sure. But, alas! to 
all but a handful it seems like an idle tale. 


The dearest thing on earth to me 
Is Jesus’ will; 

Where’er I go, where’er I be 
To do His will. 

Worldly pleasures can not charm me, 
Powers of evil can not harm me, 
Death itself can not alarm me, 

For’t is His will. 


I have seen the face of Jesus, 
Tell me not of aught beside; 
I have heard the voice of Jesus, 
All my soul is satisfied. 



Peace, perfect peace, the future all unknown; 
Jesus I know, and He is on the throne. 

Peace, perfect peace, by thronging duties pressed; 
To do the will of Jesus, this is rest. 


One who never turned his back, but marched breast 
forward; 

Never doubted clouds would break, 

Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would 
triumph, 

Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, 

Sleep to wake. 


Back of the loaf is the snowy flour, 

And back of the flour the mill; 

And back of the mill is the wheat and the shower 
And the sun, and the Father’s will. 

196 


CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 


I 


I will say it over and over, 

This and every day, 
Whatsoever the Master orders, 
Come what may, 

“ It is the Lord’s appointment 
For only His love can see 
What is wisest, best, and right; 
What is truly good for me. 

198 






CHARLES GEORGE GORDON. 

Hb who became known as “Chinese Gordon” 
because of his marvelous exploits in defeating 
the Taipings in China, and who became so 
greatly endeared to the English people because 
of his equally marvelous work in the Soudan, 
besides being a heroic soldier and an almost un¬ 
rivaled leader of men, was clearly one of the 
brightest saints of modern times. To do any¬ 
thing like half justice to the latter traits in his 
character, within brief compass, we must wholly 
omit dwelling on the former, and refer our read¬ 
ers, for those particulars, to the many lives of 
the General to be found in most libraries. 

His birthday was January 28, 1833, and his 
crowning day January 26, 1885—slain by Arab 
spears or rifle balls at Khartoum, diademed by 
the Almighty somewhere in the upper regions. 
His father was a lieutenant-general in the Royal 
Artillery, stationed at Woolrich when Charles 
199 


200 The Saintly Calling . 

was born, and the latter was educated in the Mili¬ 
tary Academy there. Whether he ever had any 
experience which corresponds at all closely to 
what we call conversion is not clear. There is, 
at least, no account of it in any of the many books 
about him which have appeared, or any of his 
voluminous journals and letters. His brother 
writes: “It is difficult to say at what period of 
his life his thoughts began to take a serious turn. 
One thing is quite certain, and that is, that 
through his mother’s loving tenderness the seed 
was sown in childhood, and that the terrible 
scenes of rapine, starvation, and murder he wit¬ 
nessed in China caused that seed to bring forth 
its own fruit in good time.” Rev. Mr. Barnes 
says: “He told me that he could not remember 
a period when thinking of these things (the joys 
of heaven) he had not longed for death.” Be¬ 
fore Sebastopol, when he was twenty-one, we 
find cropping out in letters and journals much 
the same ideas that characterized his whole life. 
He was never connected directly with any sec¬ 
tion of professing Christians: the two he most 


Charles George Gordon, 201 

favored were the English Presbyterians and the 
Church of England. He was truly catholic, find¬ 
ing good in all, and as ready to help the poor of 
one sect as of another, “Protestants and Catho¬ 
lics, 1 ” he said, “are but soldiers of different regi¬ 
ments in the same army.” Berzati Bey, hi* black 
Mohammedan secretary in the Soudan, taught 
him, he says, “the great lesson that in all nations 
and climes there are those who are perfect gen¬ 
tlemen, and who, though they may not be called 
Christians, are so in spirit and in truth.” 

He was by no means without weaknesses and 
faults. He had many peculiarities and eccen¬ 
tricities. Inaction was intolerable to him, and 
he had an almost morbid appreciation of the 
value of time. Hence he was not always placid 
or patient. Impatience and pride, or the fear of 
their rising again though so firmly held down, 
troubled him more or less to the end. He was 
not in all things worthy to be an example, not a 
model of all the virtues, and he would have been 
the last to claim it, or to profess entire deliver¬ 
ance from a sinful nature. But there have been 


202 The Saintly Calling . 

very few men who strove so earnestly to conform 
their lives to the will of God or to imitate Jesus 
Christ. He seemed to care for nothing except to 
serve his Lord and do good. A prayer he often 
uttered was: '‘May I be ground to dust if He will 
glorify Himself in me.” Much of his life was a 
living sacrifice, a suffering for the sins of others. 
He stands out not as a little hill, but as one of 
the mountains of God, a hero among heroes, a 
saint among saints. Says Rev. H. C. Wilson, 
who was with him much at Gravesend: “I never 
knew a man who lived so near to God. He lit¬ 
erally looked not at the seen but at the unseen, 
and endured as seeing Him who is invisible.” 
Said one who was conversant with his life in Ire¬ 
land: “I knew General Gordon well, and if it 
were possible for a man to be deified on account 
of his goodness, Gordon was the man.” An offi¬ 
cer in the army who knew him intimately, said: 
“Gordon was the nearest approach to Christ Jesus 
of any man that ever lived.” Mr. Lawrence Oli- 
phant called him “the most Christly man I ever 
knew.” And of such testimonies many more 
have been given. 


203 


Charles George Gordon. 

His unworldliness could in no way be hid 
from the gaze of those about him. They felt in 
him all the naturalness of a little child, the 
strangeness also of childhood that has not yet 
learned our poor earthly values or our low earthly 
language. He was not at home in conventional 
society, hated to be lionized, disliked decorations, 
fled, from human praise. He was not a dreamer; 
he was simply awake in the world of dreamers 
under an open sky, while the rest were shut in. 
Nothing irritated him more than to be effusively 
thanked. The desire to efface himself entered 
into the small details of life, and amounted al¬ 
most to a disease. He would never talk of him¬ 
self or his doings. His four principles of life, 
he said, were: “(O Entire self-forgetfulness; (2) 
absence of pretension; (3) refusal to accept as a 
motive the world’s praise or disapproval; (4) to 
follow in all things the will of God.” Ceaseless 
self-sacrifice, love for man, and an absolute trust 
in God were the mainsprings of his activity, and 
the chief sources of his joy. 

It is his unwavering trust in God, his absolute 


204 Th e Saintly Calling . 

faith, perhaps more than any other one thing, 
which would be selected as the leading feature of 
his character. He said: “Either I must believe 
He does all things in mercy and love, or I must 
disbelieve in His existence; there is no halfway 
in that matter for me.” “It is quite impossible 
that any one can be happy, or even tranquil, un¬ 
less he accepts the faith that God rules every lit¬ 
tle item in our daily lives, permitting the evil 
and turning it to our good.” “Whatsoever hap¬ 
pens is best; God directs all things, great and 
small, in infinite wisdom.” “The whole of re¬ 
ligion consists in looking to God as the true 
Ruler, and above the agents he uses; the flesh 
will always look to the agents.” “I can not wish 
things were different from what they are, for if I 
do so then I wish my will, not His, to be done.” 
“In this life the position we occupy is as nothing; 
each is in his right place.” “When you bow to 
the will of God, you die to this world.” 

“Be not thou moved,” was one of his favorite 
watchwords. And his keen appreciation of the 
superior delights of the next world was one of 


Charles George Gordon . 205 

the principal causes why the delights and dangers 
of this world had so little power to move him. 
He looked forward to death as a great boon, an 
inestimable blessing, above all things to be de¬ 
sired. He writes: “Some one has said to me 
that my sister’s marriage might shorten my 
mother’s life, as if it was a thing to be lamented.” 
“If you see any one fading away, envy him or 
her, and say, How long shall I be passed over; 
when will my time come?” “One blessing of the 
Christian’s life is that he daily grows younger 
and younger, and is, as it were, born when he 
dies.” To the King of Abyssinia, who threatened 
him with death, he replied that he was entirely 
ready to die, and that in killing him the king 
would only confer a favor, opening a door he 
must not open for himself. 

He was a simple, strong, unselfish man, a 
knight of the nineteenth century. The days and 
the deeds of chivalry were in him more than re¬ 
peated, they were heightened because of the loft¬ 
ier motives which lighted him on his lonely way. 
For if ever .one was possessed with a fervent love 


206 The Saintly Calling . 

for man combined with a passion for God’s 
glory and a supreme devotion to the will divine 
it certainly was he. To him it was given to show 
clearly that the highest ideals of faith and duty 
are living forces still, even in a materialistic, com¬ 
mercial, money-making age. He was free from 
cant He did not press religion indiscriminately 
on all, being a man of exceeding great common 
sense, but wherever he felt that it would do he 
introduced the subject, and delighted in nothing 
so much as to talk about the things of the king¬ 
dom. He was an assiduous tract distributer in a 
quiet way. Before leaving England for Khar¬ 
toum the last time, he sent to each member of 
the cabinet a copy of “Clarke on the Scripture 
Promises,” which was one of his favorite books. 
The “Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius” was held 
by him in the very highest esteem, and also Kem- 
pis’s “Imitation of Christ.” 

On his final departure from England he sent 
to a friend, from the War Office, this telegram: 
“I go to the Soudan to-night; if He goes with 
me all must be well.” The whole story of his 


Charles George Gordon . 207 

life is written in these simple words. He called 
the presence of God his Koh-i-noor. The last let¬ 
ter which he sent from Khartoum, December 14, 
1884, j us t before the veil shut in around him, 
contains these closing words: “God rules all; 
and as He will rule to His glory and our welfare, 
His will be done. I am quite happy, thank God, 
and, like Lawrence, I have tried to do my duty.” 
He is not dead. Such men can not die. The ad¬ 
miration of what he was and what he did, which 
never can cease to grow, must raise up many to 
emulate his high example, to copy his unshaka¬ 
ble faith, his fervent love, his absorption in the 
will divine. He was, it has been said, “a man as 
unselfish as Sydney, of courage dauntless as 
Wolfe, of honor stainless as Outram, of sym¬ 
pathy wide-reaching as Drummond, of honesty 
straightforward as Napier, of faith as steadfast as 
More.” Some one has written of him, 

“ Unbounded courage and compassion joined 
Tempering each other in the tenderest mind, 
Alternately proclaim him good and great, 

And make the hero and the man complete.” 


208 


The Saintly Calling. 


On the magnificent memorial tablet erected to 
him in Westminster Abbey, appear these words : 
“To Major-General Charles George Gordon, 
. . . who at all times and everywhere gave 

his strength to the weak, his substance to the 
poor, his sympathy to the suffering, and his heart 
to God.” 

And Tennyson’s epitaph for him, on no ac¬ 
count to be omitted, may well close this very im¬ 
perfect and much too abbreviated sketch: 

“ Warrior of God, man’s friend and tyrant’s foe, 

Now somewhere dead, far in the waste Soudan, 

Thou livest in all hearts, for all men know 
This earth has never borne a nobler man.” 


Teach me to answer still, 
What e’er my lot may be, 
To all Thou sendest me 
Of good or ill, 

All goeth as God will. 



HENRY DRUMMOND. 


14 


Let me live in my house by the side of the road, 

While the race of men go by; 

They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are 
strong, 

Wise, foolish—so am I. 

Then why should I sit in the scorner’s seat 
Or hurl the cynic’s ban ? 

Let me live in my house by the side of the road 
And be a friend to man. 


210 




HENRY DRUMMOND. 


It must be confessed that Henry Drummond 
was not exactly a saint of the conventional sort, 
or after what may be called the regulation pat¬ 
tern as it is commonly conceived. He was very 
fond of athletics, was fascinated with fishing and 
hunting, a keen chess player, a boon companion 
of boys to the end, very much given to smoking, 
always well dressed, had a strong sense of humor, 
and a plentiful supply of hobbies, among them 
that of collecting old carved oak furniture, was a 
pronounced evolutionist, and decidedly modern 
in his views of the Bible. Yet that he was far 
beyond the ordinary in goodness and holiness all 
that came into closest contact with him bear will¬ 
ing witness. Professor George Adam Smith, his 
chief biographer, says, “There are hundreds of 
men and women who will always be sure that his 
was the most Christlike life they ever knew.” 
It is the testimony of those who knew him 


211 


212 The Saintly Calling . 

longest and most intimately, that he lived con¬ 
stantly in the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthi¬ 
ans, appropriating its blessings and exemplifying 
its teachings. Mr. D. L. Moody, than whom on all 
accounts there is none more competent to speak, 
said: “Never have I known a man who, in my 
opinion, lived nearer the Master, or sought to do 
his will more fully. No man has ever been with 
me for any length of time that I did not see in 
him something that was unlike Christ, and I 
often do it in myself, but not in Henry Drum¬ 
mond. He was the most Christlike man I ever 
knew.” Sir Archibald Geikie, who taught him 
and traveled much with him, said, “I have never 
met with a man in whom transparent integrity, 
high moral purpose, sweetness of disposition, and 
exuberant helpfulness were more happily com¬ 
bined with wide culture, poetic imagination, and 
scientific sympathies, than they were in Henry 
Drummond.” Still another says, “He seemed to 
possess all the graces and virtues of which as 
perfect man I dreamed.” 

Men and women of every rank of life and of 


213 


Henry Drummond. 

almost every nation under the sun turned to him 
for the inspiration which can only come from the 
purest, and poured into his receptive soul their 
freest confidences and confessions. He was both 
prophet and priest to a great host. He was a 
born evangelist. And after the Moody and San- 
key campaign in Scotland—1873-74—which 
found him in college at Edinburgh, and in which 
he was marvelously useful, evangelism became 
the master passion of his life the rest of his days. 
He had long dreamed of it, and he was eminently 
fitted for it; a great fisher of men, one of the An¬ 
drew type, pleasant mannered, always getting 
hold of somebody and introducing people to 
Christ. This was his most enduring work for 
the Master, personal contact with others into 
whose very hearts he easily entered by a mar¬ 
velous sympathy. Never, perhaps, was any man 
so loved as he. He had a genius for friendship, 
an absorbing interest in others, looking upon their 
things rather than upon his own. He had the 
humility of self-forgetfulness, the patience of 
love, was always courteous, kind, genial, simple, 


214 


The Saintly Calling. 


sunny, and hopeful. He gave sympathy freely, 
but never called for it. He showed a Christian¬ 
ity which was perfectly natural, unforced, and 
unassuming. And yet he did not follow the 
fashions of society, did not care for the things of 
this world, seeing its extreme littleness in com¬ 
parison with the attractions of the hereafter, and 
he never bowed to Mrs. Grundy. He carried 
about him an air of distinction, but it was an air 
of purity not of pride. He belonged to the true 
aristocracy of passionate souls, those who live not 
on the circumference of things, but at the center, 
live for the things most worth while. With very 
lofty conceptions of his duty to his fellowmen, 
which prompted him to sink personal preferences 
and ease, he had also an unfaltering trust in God, 
and a deep devotion to His will. He preached 
an extended series of discourses on the “Will of 
God/’ finding it, as he says, his “freshest truth,” 
“a profound and marvelous subject,” “a great 
help to many of my friends.” He was intensely 
spiritual. “I have only one passion, that is 
Christ,” he said; and his daily life and conversa- 


Henry Drummond. 


2I 5 


tion were absolutely consistent, his friends de¬ 
clare, With this all-embracing confession of faith. 

The ease and winsomeness of his piety was, 
it should be said, largely inherited. His parents 
were deeply religious, as well as evangelical in 
doctrine, and his early home was permeated with 
a bracing Christian atmosphere. He was born 
at Sterling, August 17, 1851, and died at Tun¬ 
bridge Wells, March 11, 1897. He began to be 
a Christian at nine years of age, when he was 
found, a little curly-headed boy, weeping to think 
he had never loved the dear Savior. It was at 
this time he gave his heart to Jesus. He quite 
early received what he considered a call to the 
direct service of God, but, somewhat singularly, 
he felt no drawing to the ordinary work of the 
ministry. And though he went not only through 
the college, but also through the theological 
classes at Edinburgh (1866-76) and was even 
licensed to preach in 1878, he rejected all invita¬ 
tions to settle as a pastor. It is true that he was 
ordained in 1884, but this was only to comply 
with the regulations of the Free Church, that he 


216 


The Saintly Calling . 


might take the chair of natural science in Glas¬ 
gow Theological College. He always declined to 
be called reverend or preach in the usual accepta¬ 
tion of that term; he gave addresses, lectures, and 
Bible readings. He appeared to feel that any 
touch of professionalism would hinder him in get¬ 
ting close to those he so much wished to reach, the 
young men and boys, the students of the colleges 
and universities of Scotland, England, Ireland, 
America, and Australia, with whom he was such 
a power for good. 

He reached, with voice and pen, a wider con¬ 
stituency than almost any other religious teacher 
of his time. His first book, which made him so 
speedily famous, “Natural Law in the Spiritual 
World/’ had attained a sale of 130,000 copies 
some years ago in England alone, to say nothing 
of the vast numbers sold in other lands. His 
Christmas booklets had an amazing circulation. 
“The Greatest Thing in the World,” issued at 
Christmas, 1889, had sold in Great Britain before 
the author died, 330,000 copies. “Pax Vobiscum,” 
issued in 1890, sold 130,000 copies in six years. 


Henry Drummond ’ 


217 


Others of the series, not quite so popular, sold 
90,000, 80,000, 60,000 copies. Who can esti¬ 
mate the good that was thus done? 

But his greatest contribution to religion was 
himself. As Mr. H. W. Mabie has said, “He 
was a fine example of natural goodness, a beau¬ 
tiful type of normal religious unfolding. He 
was without cant, exaggeration, undue emphasis 
of one side of life to the exclusion of the other 
side, affectation of speech or self-consciousness.” 
He found the heart of Christianity, the secret of 
pure manhood and a beneficent life, in a personal 
friendship for Christ; and this was his chief mes¬ 
sage. Dr. Marcus Dodds, one of his teachers, 
to whose influence he was fond of expressing his 
supreme indebtedness for whatever benefit his 
life had been, said, at the funeral, “To any one 
who had need of him he seemed to have no con¬ 
cerns of his own to attend to, he was wholly at 
the disposal of those whom he could help. It 
was this active and self-forgetting sympathy, this 
sensitiveness to the condition of every one he met, 
which won the heart of peer and peasant, which 


218 The Saintly Calling. 

made him the most delightful of companions and 
the most serviceable of friends. Penetrate as 
deeply as you might into his nature, and scruti¬ 
nize it as keenly, you never met anything to dis¬ 
appoint, anything to incline you to suspend your 
judgment or modify your verdict that here you 
had a man as nearly perfect as you had ever 
known any one to be. And at the heart of all lay 
his profound religious reverence, his unreserved 
acceptance of Christ, and of Christ’s idea of law 
and life. He was through and through, first of 
all and last of all, a follower and a subject of 
Christ.” 

Yet, like the Master, and most other good 
men, he had many enemies, because he was much 
misunderstood. Their attacks were often cruel 
and he sometimes felt them, but he never retal¬ 
iated in kind. He was obliged to depart from 
the school of the older orthodoxy, even as was 
Jesus. He did his best to help on the movement 
toward a more solid, because more reasonable, 
faith, and a truer, purer Christianity. They who 
think this detracted from his saintliness must 


Henry Drummond, 


219 


part company with D. L. Moody, who, though 
most strictly orthodox himself, was great enough 
to see that this was not the matter of highest 
importance, and that mere differences of opinion 
on doctrine furnished no reason for diminution of 
sincere admiration or reverent friendship. 

One important thing we learn from Henry 
Drummond—would that we might learn it well 
—is that God’s saints are very varied in many 
things, not made on one pattern, nor conformed 
at all points to our preconceptions and likings, 
our personal temperamental ideals and views. 
Happy he who neither permits his love for an 
individual to warp his conclusions concerning 
what is generally best in the way of practices or 
doctrines, nor suffers those carefully formed con¬ 
clusions, which appeal for justification to society 
as a whole in the long run, to prevent him from 
according heartiest praise for personal sincerity 
and genuine goodness to those who depart even 
widely therefrom. 


The hero is not fed on sweets, 

Daily his own heart he eats; 
Chambers of the greet are jails, ' 
And head winds right for royal sails. 


Lowly, faithful, banish fear, 

Right onward drive unharmed; 

The port, well worth the cruise, is near, 
And every wave is charmed. 


The happiest heart that ever beat 
Was in some quiet breast 
That found the common daylight sweet, 
And left to heaven the rest. 

220 





D WIG HI LYMAN MOODY. 


Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul 
As the swift seasons roll! 

Leave thy low-vaulted past! 

Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 

Till thou at length art free, 

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea 


222 






DWIGHT LYMAN MOODY. 

The son who wrote the biography declares: 
“Father lived solely for the glory of God and for 
the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” And 
again: “For nearly half a century his one aim 
in life was to do the will of God/’ Professor 
Towner testified: “I have never met a man who 
came so near Christ’s standard as he.” That he 
lived wholly for God, with a passionate devotion 
to the work of saving souls, and was remarkably 
successful in this business, more so probably than 
any other man of his generation, is so manifest as 
to need no enlargement. And the fact makes it 
incumbent on us to inquire for the secret of his 
achievements. That he could have done what he 
did in so many directions had he not been really 
a great man, is inconceivable. Professor Drum¬ 
mond says: “Moody was the biggest human I 
ever met.” And another gave testimony: “In 
sheer brain size, in the raw material of intellect, 
223 



224 The Saintly Calling. 

Moody stands among the first three pr four great 
men I have ever known.” He had so many of 
the qualities which win that he would have made 
a huge mark on the world in almost any line of 
action. Had he continued in mercantile life— 
which he left at twenty-four, when receiving an 
annual income of $5,000—he would have been a 
millionaire. No one who saw him manage so 
marvelously his vast evangelistic campaigns, es¬ 
pecially the one at Chicago in connection with the 
World’s Fair, could doubt that as a general or 
civil administrator he would have reached very 
high rank. This needs to be said because there 
are those who, in their desire to magnify the 
grace of God, give the impression that anybody 
with an equally complete consecration would be 
used of God to do an equally large work. This 
is to think very superficially, and to ignore some 
of the plainest laws of the divine kingdom. That 
Moody could not have done so much had not 
God been marvelously with him is true. But it 
is also true that he could have done comparatively 
little had he been pf little natural capacity. It is 


Dwight Lyman Moody . 225 

not well to forget that both features or factors al¬ 
ways enter into the result. 

We are especially interested here in inquiring 
as to the particular things he did for the enhance¬ 
ment of his own spiritual growth, for these are 
the things by which we all, whether small or 
great, may reap profit. We may reach similar 
heights of holiness by the use of similar measures, 
though not called of God to do the same kind or 
degree of work. Moody had, in the first place, an 
exceptionally good mother, to whose wise train¬ 
ing he owed much; and, in the second place, a 
sound conversion. Leaving his home at North- 
field (born February 5, 1837), h e went to Boston 
to make his way when seventeen, and there, 
through the labors of a faithful Sunday-school 
teacher, was speedily brought to Christ. Soon 
after his reception into the Church (Mt. Vernon 
Congregational), he removed to Chicago to im¬ 
prove his fortunes, and there threw himself with 
characteristic energy not only into making 
money, but into working for his Savior, espe¬ 
cially in the Sunday-school line. It was in con- 
!5 


226 The Saintly Calling . 

nection with this that, in 1861, he received the 
first of those marked spiritual uplifts, that made 
him what he was. The story has been often told, 
how one of the teachers in the school he superin¬ 
tended, finding that he was going to die of con¬ 
sumption, and being much distressed over the 
fact that he had never led any of his class to 
Christ, went round with Moody to all their 
houses and pleaded with them until the last one 
had yielded. Then, the night before the teacher 
had to leave, the class was called together for a 
prayer-meeting. Mr. Moody says: “There God 
kindled a fire in my soul that has never gone out. 
The height of my ambition had been to be a suc¬ 
cessful merchant, and if I had known that meet¬ 
ing was going to take that ambition out of me, I 
might not have gone. But how many times I 
have thanked God since for that meeting! As 
I went from it I said to myself, ‘O God, let me 
die rather than lose the blessing I have received 
to-night/ ” 

He did not lose it, but, on the contrary, added 
to it many others. Not all are recorded, but spe- 


Dwight Lyman Moody. 227 

cial mention is made in his biography of no less 
than five, as the years went on. One came on his 
first visit to Great Britain, in 1867. There he 
heard words which, his son says, marked the be¬ 
ginning of a new era in his life. They were 
uttered, we believe, by Mr. Henry Varley, and 
were as follows: “The world has yet to see what 
God will do with, and for, and in, and by, and 
through a man who is fully and wholly conse¬ 
crated to Him.” This was not true, for God had 
already shown through Wesley, as well as 
through others, what He could do with men en¬ 
tirely given up to Him. Nevertheless, it made a 
great impression on the mind of Mr. Moody. 
He reflected: “He did not say a great man, nor 
a learned man, nor a rich man, nor a wise man, 
nor an eloquent man, but simply a man. I am a 
man, and it lies with the man himself whether or 
not he will make that entire and full consecration. 
I will try my best to be that man.” The impres¬ 
sion was deepened by another remark made by 
Mr. Bewley, of Dublin, who inquired if he was 
“all O and O,” meaning all out and out for 


228 


The Saintly Calling . 


Christ. “From that time forward, says the biog¬ 
rapher, “the endeavor to be O and O for Christ 
was supreme.” 

It was not very long after this when another 
epoch in Mr. Moody’s experience was marked by 
his intercourse with Henry Moorehouse, whose 
acquaintance he made in Dublin, and who came 
over to Chicago to preach for Mr. Moody in the 
Church he had there established, preaching for 
seven successive nights on the one text, “God so 
loved the world.” A specially sweet baptism of 
love seems to have been the result. Again, in 
1871, came a crisis which meant much to him. 
An intense hunger and thirst for spiritual power 
was aroused in him by two women who used to 
attend his meetings and sit on the front seat. He 
could see by the expression on their faces that 
they were praying. They told him that they were 
praying for him, because he needed the power of 
the Spirit and an anointing for special service. 
They talked and prayed with him. He says: 
“There came a great hunger into my soul. I 
did not know what it was. I began to cry out 


229 


Dwight Lyman Moody . 

as I never did before. I really felt that I did not 
want to live if I could not have this power for 
service.” While he was in this mental and spir¬ 
itual condition, Chicago was laid in ashes by the 
big fire. He worked hard to repair the losses, 
but he says: “My heart was not in the work of 
begging. I was crying- all the time that God 
would fill me with His Spirit. Well, one day in 
the city of New York—O what a day!—I can 
not describe it, I seldom refer to it; it is almost 
too sacred an experience to name. I can only say 
that God revealed Himself to me, and I had such 
an experience of His love that I had to ask Him 
to stay His hand. The blessing came upon me 
suddenly, like a flash of lightning. I was filled 
with a sense of God’s goodness, and felt as 
though I could take the whole world to my heart. 
I went to preaching again. The sermons were 
not different; I did not present new truths, and 
yet hundreds were converted. I would not now 
be placed back where I was before that blessed 
experience if you should give me all the world— 
it would be as the small dust of the balance. 


230 


The Saintly Calling . 


Since then I have never lost the assurance that I 
am walking in communion with God, and I have 
a joy in His service that sustains me and makes 
it easy work. I believe I was an older man then 
than I am now; I have been growing younger 
ever since. I used to be very tired when preach¬ 
ing three times a week; now I can preach five 
times a day and never get tired at all. I have 
done three times the work I did before, and it 
gets better and better every year. It is so easy 
to do a thing when love prompts you.” 

In the next year—1872—he was in England 
again, and attended the Mildmay Conference in 
London. He thus records his impression of the 
Rev. William Pennefather, founder of Mildmay: 
“I well remember seeing the beloved Mr. Penne- 
father’s face illuminated as it were with heaven’s 
light. I do n’t think I can recall a word that he 
said, but the whole atmosphere of the man 
breathed holiness, and I got then a lift and im¬ 
petus in the Christian life that I have never lost, 
and I believe the impression will remain with me 
to my dying day. I thank God that I saw and 


231 


Dwight Lyman Moody . 

spoke with that holy man; no one could see him 
without the consciousness that he lived in the 
presence of God.” 

One other special experience is given, which 
occurred much later—in 1892—when on his voy¬ 
age from England he came very near being ship¬ 
wrecked. He found himself, in the face of that 
imminent peril, not as calm as he should have 
been, not wholly delivered from the fear of death. 
He writes: “It was the darkest hour of my life. 
I could not endure it. I must have relief, and 
relief came in prayer. God heard my cry and 
enabled me to say from the depth of my heart, 
‘Thy will be done/ Sweet peace came to my 
soul. Let it be Northfield or heaven, it made no 
difference now.” He was delivered from all his 
fears, and fell asleep almost immediately. 

If the change that came to him in 1861 shall 
be dominated his second blessing, then it is clear 
that other and perhaps greater blessings, espe¬ 
cially that in 1871, had to follow for the carry¬ 
ing on of the work of God in his soul, and that 
even as late as ’92 there was still something to be 


232 The Saintly Calling . 

done. We believe this to be God’s usual way, re¬ 
vealing the need gradually as the soul is best 
fitted to bear it and to take advantage of the op¬ 
portunities brought in sight. Most people do not 
seize these opportunities, nor keep their hearts 
open to these calls. But Mr. Moody was so 
deeply desirous of the best things that he let slip 
no chance of spiritual gain. He could sincerely 
say with the Apostle Paul: “To me to live is 
Christ.” Writing from Scotland in 1874, he de¬ 
clared: “One thing is my motto.” Concentra¬ 
tion and intensity characterized him; also sim¬ 
plicity and humility. He was willing to learn 
from every one. His patience, his sympathy, his 
unselfishness, his disregard of money, were very 
marked. He kept himself, so far as possible, 
with great care from every appearance of evil. 
He had a keen conscience, tremendous earnest¬ 
ness and a very complete trust in God. He re¬ 
fused to worry. He was able to throw off all 
burden of mind when he had done his utmost. 
It was only in this way that he endured the im¬ 
mense amount of exertion that he so constantly 



Dwight Lyman Moody . 233 

put forth. “It is worry that kills,” he would 
say, and after the most exacting work he would 
be able to relieve his mind of all anxiety and rest 
as quietly as a child. He could sleep almost to 
order. 

Nothing is more marked about him than his 
devotion to God’s Word, and his very high esti¬ 
mate of the importance of prayer. He rose at 
daybreak, at five o’clock or at six according to 
the season, to get an hour of quiet solitary com¬ 
munion with God, while his mind was fresh, be¬ 
fore the activities of the day divided his attention, 
as an indispensable preparation for the day’s 
work. He devoted it mainly to the Scriptures. 
He was an untiring Bible student, filling copy 
after copy of the Word with marginal notes and 
illustrative nugget thoughts. It nourished and 
strengthened his inner life as nothing else could. 
It was sweeter to him than the honeycomb. 
Prayer also held a great place with him. He 
was much in supplication, and records many 
answers. But he did not, as a rule, spend much 
time in secret prayer. Protracted seasons pf 


234 


The Saintly Calling . 


agonizing petition did not seem called for in his 
case. The very atmosphere in which he lived 
was one of constant communion with God. It 
was perfectly easy for him to stop wherever he 
was and talk with the Father as naturally as with 
a friend. He often did it as he was driving in 
the country. His closeness of walk was not lim¬ 
ited to special occasions, but was continuous and 
very blessed. 

He was at times homesick for heaven, even 
when a young man entering into Rutherford’s 
burning words. As years increased the .longing 
was greatly intensified. His departure (Decem¬ 
ber 22, 1899) was very triumphant. “Earth re¬ 
cedes, heaven opens before me. It is beautiful. 
I have been beyond the gates of death, and to the 
very portals of heaven. If this is death, it is 
sweet. There is no valley here. God is calling 
me, and I must go.” These were some of his 
latest words. The tombstone on Round Top, 
where his body lies, has simply this inscription, 
so strongly significant: “He that doeth the will 
of God abideth forever.” 


Dwight Lyman Moody . 235 

In Mr. Moody the subjective and the object¬ 
ive sides of religion were marvelously combined. 
No passive Christianity would do for him. His 
wonderful achievements—in his revival cam¬ 
paigns, his Northfield schools, his Bible Insti¬ 
tute, his Y. M. C. A. work, his colportage library, 
his efforts for the prisoners, etc., give loud wit¬ 
ness of this fact. But he was not so shallow or 
so ignorant as to think that mere bustle would 
accomplish anything, or that the power lay in 
multiplied machinery. He was a magnificent ex¬ 
ample of sanctified common sense. He was a 
practical, whole-hearted, completely devoted, 
wholly consecrated Christian. His gifts may not 
be ours. But his graces are within our grasp, 
and an equally hearty “Well done!” will come to 
us from the Master if we are equally faithful. 


I/Ord, I have given my life to Thee, 
And every day and hour is Thine; 
What Thou appointest let them be; 
Thy will is better, Tord, than mine. 



And some innative weakness there must be 
In him that condescends to victory 
Such as the present gives, and can not wait, 
Safe in himself as in a fate. 


A jewel is a jewel still 

Though lying in the dust; 

And sand is sand, though up to heaven 
By the tempest thrust. 


The poem hangs on the berry bush 
When comes the poet’s eye; 

And all the street is a masquerade 
When Shakespeare passes by. 

236 






WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. 


All common things, each day’s events, 
That with the day begin and end, 
Our pleasures and our discontents, 

Are rounds by which we may ascend. 
238 





WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. 


When ministers and missionaries are uncom¬ 
monly good it seems easy for some people to dis¬ 
count their example with the plea that their spe¬ 
cial occupation gives them unusual advantages. 
Hence, when a man, who was in prominent pub¬ 
lic life for more than sixty years, and for a good 
part of that time carried on his shoulders the 
full burden of a great empire, manifests very 
marked piety it is particularly worth while to ex¬ 
amine it. Mr. Gladstone certainly had enough 
to do and to think about to keep him extremely 
busy; and if that is ever an excuse for neglecting 
communion with God, he might have urged it. 
But it is certain that he did not. He was a great 
Christian. Not since Cromwell has there ap¬ 
peared an English ruler in whom the religious 
motive was so prominent. Religion was the cen¬ 
ter of his being always, from earliest days to 
latest. 


239 


240 


The Saintly Calling. 


He taught in Sunday-school as a youth, lis¬ 
tened to sermons devoutly, read his Bible regu¬ 
larly at Eton, and became while there a member 
of the Church. An entry in his diary at Oxford, 
April 25, 1830, when he was nearly twenty-one, 
reveals the nourishing principle of his growth. 
He said: “In practice the great end is that the 
love of God may become the habit of my soul, 
and particularly these things are to be sought: 
(1) the spirit of love; (2) of self-sacrifice; (3) 
of purity; (4) of energy.” He held prayer-meet¬ 
ings in his rooms, and paid the closest attention to 
all religious observances. Near the end of his 
college course he felt a strong drawing toward the 
ministry. In a long letter to his father about it 
he said: “The work of spreading religion has a 
claim infinitely transcending all others in dignity, 
in solemnity, and in usefulness.” His mother 
wished this career for him; his father, while not 
opposing, bade him wait before deciding till he 
had seen a, little more of the world. This “mis¬ 
sionary impulse, this yearning for some apostolic 
destination, this glow of self-devotion to a su- 


William E. Gladstone . 


241 


preme external will,” his biographer says, “in 
essence never faded.” A few days later he joined 
a small brotherhood, formed by one of his friends, 
with rules for systematic exercises of devotion 
and works of mercy. 

In later life this same intense religiousness 
continued, taking other fervid forms. Unable to 
go as a missionary abroad, which he would have 
liked, he found a missionary field at home in per¬ 
sonal labor for the fallen women of London. In 
these humane efforts at reclamation of the low¬ 
est he persevered to the last, fearless of miscon¬ 
struction, regardless of the levity or baseness of 
men’s tongues, and even in spite of the possible 
mischiefs' to the important public policies that de¬ 
pended on him. But we do not know that any of 
them ever suffered on this account. He attached 
great importance to the dedication of not less 
than one-tenth of his means to the purposes of 
charity and religion. His account books prove 
that he never at any time in his life set aside 
less than a tenth of his income for God. From 
1831 to 1897 the record shows that he gave about 
16 


242 The Saintly Calling . 

£84,000 besides £30,000 for the founding of the 
hostel and library at St. Demobs. 

The Bible was everything to him. He re¬ 
cords in his diary how, “on most occasions of 
very sharp pressure or trial some word of Scrip¬ 
ture has come home to me as if borne on angel’s 
wings;” and he gives many illustrations of it. 
He was most faithful to closet duties. He culti¬ 
vated the habit—and found it most beneficial— 
of inwardly turning his thoughts to God during 
the intervals of business. He maintained that 
right and wrong depend on the same set of max¬ 
ims in public as in private life. He had a passion 
for simplicity. He was thrifty of time and of 
money, hating waste; he took note of minor 
morals as well as major, was conscientious about 
paying compliments. He counted that the path 
through which highest sanctity is attained is in 
making our will one with the divine, so that we 
would not, if we could, alter anything which God 
has determined. 

Life was to him a very serious business, “a 
great and noble calling,” he said, “not a mean and 


William E. Gladstone . 


243 


groveling thing that we are to shuffle through as 
we can, but an elevated and lofty destiny/’ He 
was one of that high and favored household who, 
in Emerson’s noble phrase, “live from a great 
depth of being.” He sought the attainment of 
grand ideals, and was guided by the highest 
moral aspirations. All men were forced to recog¬ 
nize this, even those least friendly. It was one 
main secret of his power. He held fast to right¬ 
eousness. People were unable to question his 
integrity, however much they differed from him 
in policy. He had much to contend with in his 
natural disposition, for he combined the impulse, 
passion, pride, and fire of the Highlander with 
the caution and circumspection of the Lowlander. 
He attained complete self-mastery, but only by 
incessant wrestling in prayer. This is the testi¬ 
mony of his wife. 

He showed, as few have done, how great a 
thing the life of a man may be made. He so lived 
and wrought that he kept the soul alive in Eng¬ 
land. He always asked, not what is popular, but 
what is right, and are the means as right as the 


244 


The Saintly Calling. 


end. He did not follow public opinion; he led it, 
carrying his great schemes for the benefit of the 
nation and the world against the ignorance of 
the country and against the rooted standing prej¬ 
udices of both branches of the legislature. He 
resisted with all his might the odious contention 
that moral progress in the relations of nations 
and States to one another is an illusion and a 
dream. He presents a most vivid example of 
public duty and private faithfulness. He was 
“one of the glories of mankind,” with a fame as 
wide as the human race. The luster and long 
continuity of his public performances still left 
his innermost ideals constant and undimmed. 
“The contagion of the world’s slow stain” did not 
infect him. When he died, as one not an Eng¬ 
lishman said, “the world lost its greatest citizen.” 

Yet few men have been more intensely hated, 
subjects of deeper antagonism and more mali¬ 
cious assaults. One reason why he met such 
abuse was that most people were not good enough 
to understand him. The men of the world and 
of the clubs could not comprehend him at all. 


William E. Gladstone . 


245 


All earnest, thoughtful persons admired and re¬ 
spected him; some loved him. The upper classes 
never took to him much; but he became more and 
more “the people’s William,” the idol of the 
masses, who recognized him after a while as the 
champion of their rights, the advocate of justice, 
the friend of liberty. He was a very rare combi¬ 
nation of goodness and greatness, simplicity of 
character and subtlety of intellect, a magnificent 
mind and a saintly soul. It affords unmeasured 
satisfaction to see a man of his intellectual 
strength, his splendid power, his unrivaled 
achievements, bowing so low at the foot of the 
cross, attached so devotedly to the Church of 
Jesus Christ, so unwearied in good works, so un¬ 
spotted by the world, and counting it his highest 
honor that he has a humble place among the hosts 
of the redeemed. His deepest longing as a young 
man was that he “might grow into the image of 
the Redeemer.” He did so grow. He main¬ 
tained his inner life in all its absorbing exalta¬ 
tions decade after decade, amid the ever-swelling 
rush of urgent secular affairs. He never lost the 


246 


The Saintly Calling . 


breath of the diviner ether. Habitually he strove 
for the lofty uplands. Political life was simply 
a part of his religion; and so was literary life. 
The fuller the sunlight is thrown upon his days 
the brighter do they shine. Not only do the in¬ 
stitutions of his country owe him a debt that can 
never be paid, but the whole world is the richer 
for his having lived. His example must do very 
much to promote true godliness. 


Nothing pays but God, 

Served—in work obscure, done honestly, 

Or vote for truth unpopular, 

Or faith maintained to ruinous connections. 


That best portion of a good man’s life, 
His little, nameless, unremembered acts 
Of kindness and of love. 



BENJAMIN M. ADAMS. 


To feel, although no tongue can prove, 
That every cloud that spreads above, 
And veileth love, is love itself. 

248 


BENJAMIN M. ADAMS. 


No one who knew Benjamin M. Adams 
would question for a moment that when he took 
his triumphant flight to heaven from Bethel, 
Conn., December 23, 1902, in his seventy-ninth 
year, one of the brightest saints of Methodism 
passed on to glory. He loved the Lord with all 
his heart, and gave his long life with uninter¬ 
rupted devotion and unquenchable zeal to the 
service of the Master, doing good and only good 
for more than half a century. 

He was born at Stamford, Conn., April 11, 
1824. Particulars of his early religious experi¬ 
ence are not accessible. But there came a time 
after he was admitted to the Methodist ministry 
(which was in 1848) when, as he said, “B. M. 
Adams died/’ “It took me,” he said, “about six 
hours to get to the bottom of things that day.” 
When questioned as to whether he had ever sinned 
since, his reply was, “O, yes, many a time, 
249 


250 


The Saintly Calling . 


very likely; I fail, and have times of great humil- ,> 
iation before God; I am hot-blooded; but I have 
never stopped a second after I have had a con¬ 
viction that I have grieved the Holy Spirit with¬ 
out hurrying to the blood of Jesus Christ.” He 
referred undoubtedly in this statement to sins of 
ignorance, weakness, and surprise, which he was 
accustomed to carefully differentiate from inten¬ 
tional, deliberate transgressions. “The souls of 
men get on towards God,” he said, “as a rule, by 
a series of crises.” This was evidently his own 
experience, as it has been of nearly all others 
who have made any large advancements. They 
have gone to what they thought was the bottom 
of things in their soul-searching and self-surren¬ 
der, and reaped great victories; and then, as de¬ 
velopment has proceeded, they have found other 
deeper bottoms which needed attention, and 
reached other consequent exaltations. 

He made no high pretensions. “I have never 
professed Christian holiness or being filled with 
the Spirit,” he said. He called himself just a 
seeker ; but he declared, “I have found something 


Benjamin M. Adams . 251 

that has made me gay.” He was identified, 
nearly all his life, with what may be termed the 
holiness movement; was indeed for some years a 
member of “the National Camp-Meeting Com¬ 
mittee for the Promotion of Holiness,” but he 
did not altogether enjoy the manner in which the 
doctrine was presented by most of the members, 
and, soon after the death of Alfred Cookman, 
with whom he was in closest sympathy, he sev¬ 
ered his connection with the committee. Pie was 
everywhere a very acceptable exponent of the 
doctrine and practice of the higher Christian life. 
He was remarkably gifted with sound common 
sense, and combined saintliness with sanity to an 
uncommon degree. While essentially Methodist 
in his doctrine, he was by no means a bigot or a 
fanatic, wedded to any particular set of terms or 
shibboleths. His favorite theme was the fullness 
of the Holy Spirit, which he called the New Tes¬ 
tament idea of religion, and this he presented 
with great clearness of statement and felicity of 
illustration. 

He was thoroughly original, “a paragon of 


252 The Saintly Calling . 

sanctified naturalness.” “Be yourself,” was one 
of his most frequent exhortations. “The Holy 
Spirit sets your individuality free. Let the Lord 
sit down at the keyboard and play you all over, 
all the stops out. Risk God; let Him take you; 
let things go; dare to do. When God comes into 
a man he always follows the grain, just as light¬ 
ning does when it strikes a tree. If you are good 
for anything you are peculiar; a man that has 
any go in him has some special way of going. 
Save your knots, they are probably the best 
things about you; do not let them all be planed 
out of you for anything in the world. The Lord 
deliver us from the curse of the commonplace, 
from everlasting sameness and tameness. Entire 
sanctification does not turn men into putty or 
spuash; it promotes masculinity. Look at the 
imperial manliness of the Lord Jesus Christ; he 
would not speak to Herod, that rotten old 
wretch.” 

Another frequent injunction was, “Be alone 
with God as much as you can; that has been my 
chief secret. Take time to be long with God in 


Benjamin M. Adams . 


253 


prayer. If you come to a knotty spot pray it 
through.” He used sometimes to take whole 
days to pray; he prayed till he had a full con¬ 
sciousness of victory, victory for the campaign 
in behalf of souls on which he was entering, till 
he could look over the whole field, as he expressed 
it, and not see the devil anywhere in sight, he 
had been so thoroughly fought to a finish, so con¬ 
clusively put on the run. “Have a day alone 
with God,” he used to say; “form a prayer trust.” 
He was greatly given to intercessory prayer; he 
had a long list of people that he prayed for every 
day, a list hung up in his study, a hundred or 
more, bishops, ministers, and others. He said, 
“I make it a rule never to leave my room in the 
morning without a consciousness of the presence 
of God. I tie to God in the morning for the 
day’s work, and in the evening for the night’s 
rest. My place of inspiration and recuperation 
is the closet. The Book of Psalms is a wonderful 
prayer-book.” Sunday morning he usually spent 
two hours in prayer, and read through the Book 
of Revelation; he had read it before the close of 


254 


The Saintly Calling. 


his life nearly 1,200 times. The city of the rain¬ 
bows and the hallelujahs inspired him for the pul¬ 
pit; he liked to see, he said, how things were 
coming out. He went into the pulpit with shak¬ 
ing knees, not through fear, but through a deep 
consciousness of the importance of the message 
and of the fact that some, very likely, might be 
hearing it for the last time. He accounted it 
“Paradise to preach;” “my play-spell is in the 
pulpit.” He esteemed it a most magnificent thing 
to be a Methodist preacher, considering the Meth¬ 
odist Church to be the one best adapted in the 
world for the baptism of the Holy Ghost. “These 
are the best days of Methodism in my opinion; 
there are great days of God’s power just as often 
now as in the ancient times.” 

He was somewhat demonstrative, fittingly so, 
on principle as well as by nature. He believed in 
the utmost liberty in these matters, no repression. 
“Methodists should be in better business,” he 
would remark, “than trying to suppress their 
emotions; if you keep shutting off the steam, after 
a while the engine blows up or the fire goes out.” 


X 

Benjamin M. Adams . 255 

“A dry hallelujah is poor stuff; a wet hallelujah 
is just what we want. ,, “The baptism of the 
Holy Ghost to-day means the burning heart, a 
living fire in the soul. It will enable us to speak 
with another tongue; the tongue that is worked 
by the burning heart will have persuasive power. 
The Churches are suffering from cold storage, 
from frigidity; they are decorous as gravestones. 
When God comes in fullness he makes hot; the 
torrid zone is where everything grows luxuri¬ 
antly. You can make a bonfire on the ice and 
change the climate where you are if you are the 
only one in the Church with a burning heart. 
Your experience must be burnt in, not simply 
painted on, like china which has been in the fur¬ 
nace. A man filled with the Holy Ghost is a king; 
he can go anywhere he pleases around this uni¬ 
verse.’ J “As long as a man is on the line of dis¬ 
covering God he will keep his enthusiasm, and 
not a moment longer.” “There must be no di¬ 
vorce between the head and the heart.” “When a 
man can tell all about his experience he has not 
got the New Testament brand. I believe in un- 


256 


The Saintly Calling . 


tellable things, the things that beggar the diction¬ 
ary and make language poor, that can not “be de¬ 
fined. Who is going to define the joy of the 
Lord, or phrase an emotion? Sometimes all we 
can say is, ‘O the depth.’ There are times when 
God simply swamps me; He is too big for me; 
what an overwhelming power there is in saving 
grace, in ‘the speechless awe that dares not 
move.’ ” 

He thoroughly believed that the care of the 
body had a great deal to do with the inner life, 
that the joy of the Lord was the greatest thing 
for health. He took pains with regular exercise, 
was very much of an athlete, given to gymnastics, 
and very particular to follow all the laws of his 
physical system. When a young man it was not 
supposed that he could live more than two years 
because of lung disease, but through proper reme¬ 
dies he became very strong, a monument of phys¬ 
ical vigor. “The way to postpone superannua¬ 
tion,” he said, “is to keep filled with God.” “A 
good remedy for strife after place is to be so rich 
in God that you can afford to do without every- 


Benjamin M. Adams . 257 

thing else.” “I have had a very happy ministry, 
and I am a very happy old man.” He had a deep 
desire to show that a man can be an effective 
Methodist preacher until eighty. But this prayer 
was not granted. The zeal of the Lord and of 
His house consumed him. The last summer of 
his life he was in labors exceedingly abundant, 
at camp-meetings and conventions in many 
places, and it proved that he had unwittingly 
gone beyond his strength. 

He served some of the best Churches in the 
New York and New York East Conferences, was 
presiding elder for two terms, was one of the 
founders of the Ocean Grove Camp-meeting, for 
many years conducted the devotional hour at the 
Chautauqua Sunday-school Assembly, wrote or 
inspired a few hymns that will live, and some im¬ 
portant articles. He had no great amount of edu¬ 
cation; but he knew men, knew God, knew the 
Bible, and knew how to bring these together. 
Extensive revivals attended his ministry, and the 
Churches were built up in Scriptural holiness. 
He was very nearly a model as the guiding genius 

17 


258 The Saintly Calling . 

of a spiritual conference. Without a word of 
cant or sensationalism, or censoriousness, or over- 
pbtrusion of self, he taught as one who has been 
habitually with Jesus. Original in statement, 
genial in disposition, fervent in spirit, his utter¬ 
ances well seasoned oftentimes with the salt of 
wit, yet never diverted from the full recognition 
of the Infinite—favored were those who sat at 
his feet. 

We shall not soon look upon his like again. 
He stood for the burning heart, for the hallelujah 
type of religion, for the Spirit-filled life. He 
was cheerful, hopeful, buoyant, optimistic, a man 
of prayer and yet a man of affairs, carrying the 
divine presence ever out into the world, which 
he did his best to make over after the pattern 
showed him in the mount. He aimed to do his 
best for God wherever he was all the time. He 
knew where his sanctification began, but he could 
find no place for it to end. He was ever on the 
line of discovery, ever growing. He kept a pad 
of paper and an electric candle by his bedside, 
that if God revealed something to him at night 


Benjamin M. Adams. 


259 


he could secure it at once. Some years ago he 
awaked in the middle of the night and seemed to 
hear a voice saying, “Help yourself to God!” At 
first it seemed almost shocking and irreverent, 
but the words repeated themselves over and over, 
“Help yourself to God, help yourself!” And a 
sense of peace and joy unspeakable filled his 
heart, while he realized as never before how God 
stands at our side waiting to give us abundantly 
of his Spirit so that we have only to help our¬ 
selves. He surely helped himself very largely. 
“How cheap it is,” he shouted once; “how little 
it has cost me to have this great blessing; any¬ 
thing that is necessary in order to have the Holy 
Ghost is dirt cheap.” His prayer was, “O God, 
do Thy best in me, and O God, help me to do my 
best for Thee.” He was fond of saying, “What¬ 
ever God has done in man He can do again, and 
whatever God has done by man He can do again, 
for He is no respecter of persons.” 

A circular letter which he sent out on his 
seventy-fifth birthday, April ti, 1889, contains 
this testimony, with which this imperfect sketch 


260 


The Saintly Calling. 


may well conclude: “Spiritually these are my 
best days. Prayer is an increasing delight, the 
Bible a growing wonder, and labor for souls an 
intenser passion than ever. Never have the great 
Gospel truths as set forth in the statements of 
Methodism been so dear to me, or so fully pos¬ 
sessed me. Looking back over the fifty-one years 
of my ministry, I see wanderings, mistakes, and 
sins, but I have aimed at a holy life, and I am 
still seeking it; if so be I may have the testimony 
that I please God. Life is sweet to me; God’s 
Word charms me more and more, preaching and 
the work of the pastor were never so attractive; 
so I am not longing to go where I am not yet 
wanted, but doing my best to be ready when the 
sunset gun fires and my flag falls.” 


Know well, my soul, God’s hands control, 
What e’er thou fearest; 

Round Him, in calmest music, rolls 
What e’er thou hearest. 













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